Handwork and Handicrafts - Waldorf Research Institute

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Part III:
Painting and Drawing, Art and Aesthetics, Wall Decoration and Displays
Preparing the Painting Lesson
Dr. Steiner: “The children must not be allowed to paint with watercolors unless their
paper is stretched. Otherwise they become slovenly. The children must learn to stretch their
paper themselves. They should learn to stretch their paper neatly with glue. They must work
with paint only on stretched paper—not in exercise books! It does not matter if time is taken
up by this sort of preparation. The children have plenty of time if the teacher deals properly
with them. They do things much too quickly.
“Painting should be done only on stretched drawing paper. We cannot have drawing
boards, since they are too expensive, but it is quite possible to use a board which has been
planed smooth. Could it not be arranged for such boards, on which paper can be stretched,
to be made in the handicrafts lesson? The use of ordinary exercise books for painting is not a
satisfactory method. As soon as you begin using paints, you should also begin to stretch the
paper.” 1
Painting out of Color
Dr. Steiner: “In the teaching of art you can do very different things in very different
ways. It is not right to say that this is exclusively good, and that is exclusively bad. In
Dornach they are teaching how to paint out of the colors, and are thus working in a good
way. We have seen what a good influence it has. We get them to use their paints so that
they apply colors only out of their elementary color-imagination. For example, you say to
the child: ‘Here in the middle of the paper you have a spot of yellow. Now make it blue
(on another sheet). Do the whole picture again, so that all the other colors are changed
accordingly.’ A real deepening of the experience of color comes about in the child if he has to
change a color and then change everything else to correspond, for example, on a bag which
he has to stitch and embroider so that everything is in exactly the right place. All that you,
Frl. X, have told us leads in this direction, and that is very good. Only one cannot say in
which class to start. You will have the most success if you do it from the lowest class onwards,
and only teach writing when you can develop it out of this painting.” 2
Painting in the Upper School
Dr. Steiner: “In painting, the children should do ‘Nature moods.’ The students in
the school at Dornach did really outstanding work in painting. 3 I asked them to show the
difference between sunrise and sunset—some of them did this quite brilliantly. Things of this
kind can be done. ‘Rain in the Forest’ is an exercise for fourteen- to fifteen-year-olds. The