A creative art session with siblings Doroteja (8) and Domas (5)
My first clients were a family of four – two siblings and their parents Rolandas and Regina.
Once agreed with parents, I organised a creative session with children Doroteja (8-year-old girl) and Domas (5-year-old boy).
Once I arrived at their house, Domas told me he didn’t want to draw with me, so I would only be with Doroteja. (That was very cute. I respected his decision and didn’t try to persuade him. However, I’m very glad that Domas joined us later.)
Together with Doroteja, we brought all the art materials – paper, felt-tip pens and paint – and got comfortable on the carpet. (Except for the art materials, which we laid out on a tablecloth.)
What did we do? We just drew and talked together. We talked about favorite fairy tales and their characteristics. We agreed that these are the adventures the heroes face and the challenges they overcome. I told Doroteja that we like these features the most because they reflect challenges that we face in our own lives, such as disagreements with parents, or fights with siblings. This way I asked her if there was anything similar she was experiencing in her family.
‘Yeees.‘ Doroteja shared with me how annoying is her brother, especially when he gets angry. This reminded me of a fairy tale about an angry spirit from a bottle, I told the girl about it. It is a fairy tale of Arabian origin and is very reminiscent of Aladdin. In my own words, I will tell you this short story as well, dear readers.
'Fisherman and a Spirit from a Bottle‘
Once upon a time, there was a poor fisherman. To earn money for a bite of bread, he sailed to the sea to fish with a net. He threw his net into the water and pulled it back into the boat – perhaps he caught something. He pulled the net in once – but it was empty. Pulled it in second time – the net was full of seaweed. He pulled it in third time – this time the net was so heavy that he really hoped for success and fish – but pulled out only a pile of garbage from a shipwreck. He was about to throw that garbage back into the sea when he accidentally spotted a strange bottle.
That bottle had a spirit trapped inside. that had been imprisoned by people thousands of years ago. As soon as the spirit was imprisoned, he said to himself:
‘The man, who opens the bottle and frees me, will get fulfilled three wishes.’
But a few hundred years have passed and no one has opened the bottle. The spirit got angry and said to himself:
‘Whoever opens the bottle, that I will curse forever!‘
But no one found the bottle again. No one opened it for another several hundred years. After a while, hope returned to the spirit and he promised he would serve the person who frees him for the rest of his life. A few hundred years have passed again, and the spirit, waiting so long, became so angry at people for imprisonment that he sworn to slay the chest of a man who opens the bottle.
Poor fisherman because it was he who had to open the bottle at that moment. A colossal spirit came out and raised a sword to slay his chest. The fisherman was weak, there was not even hope for him to try to fight back. At that moment, however, the fisherman thought of something and said it to the spirit in a voice of doubt:
‘It is hard to believe that such a giant creature could fit in such a small bottle.’
And the spirit answered with pride:
‘Ha! I have magical powers – I can turn into the biggest bear and the smallest fly. To fit into a bottle is a piece of cake. I will show you my unlimited magic.’
The huge monster suddenly disappeared into the bottle, and then the fisherman immediately put on a lid, this way imprisoning the angry spirit again.
After telling this story, I suggested to Doroteja:
‘Would you like to try to draw how an angry spirit might look like?‘
For a moment I saw fear on her face as if it was an impossible task for her, and the girl replied that she didn‘t know how to do it.
‘It’s very easy,’ I began to show her. – Choose 2-3 colours and make abstract ornaments.
My method probably seemed to her strange, absurd, or pointless, but soon Doroteja followed my example – she chose three colours of a felt-tip pen, and began to draw abstract swirls.
While drawing, we played a variety of games. Later Doroteja‘s brother Domas joined us as well. Finally, when we no longer came up with other ideas for new drawing games, we went outside to play for a fun photoshoot.
All the drawings and photographs became my source of inspiration for the development of Neverland Portrait ideas. If you are interested in seeing those stories unfold, in the near future I will share the following blog posts. If you would like to stay updated, you can follow me on social media or subscribe to my newsletter,
