Bear's Mum
- Jun 5, 2020
- 2 min read

Paint music like Wassily Kandinsky!

Linking music to drawing, colours and lines is not new in history.

But today we took inspiration from Wassily Kandinsky, the famous Russian painter, who said to have synesthesia. Synestheisa is a condition in which one sense (eg. hearing) is simultaneously perceived by another sense as well (sight). Kandinsky said, that from his early childhood, he heard the colours whispering to him, when he opened his paintbox. How exciting!

He said later, "Our hearing of colour is so precise... colour is the keyboard. the eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many strings. The artist is the hand that purposely sets the soul vibrating by means of of this or that key..."

Even if we do not have synesthesia, when we listen to music and close our eyes, we can see or imagine colours or lines or images - and kids are especially good in this. So this is what we used now to create something new.

First cue put together a playlist with music pieces of very different genres. It's is a good idea to do this together with your little Bear, so he/she would enjoy the music all along and enjoy the process. Try to include very different music pieces, fast and slow, classical vs contemporary etc.

Then we prepared the paintbox, brushes, crayons and lots of white sheets of paper - all on the floor, to have enough room to create and move around.

From the different media, paint has beautiful result, but it is a bit slower to play with, therefore fits better to slower music. With crayons, it is easier to follow the faster rhythm of the music.

Best to have all of them prepared (or just what you have at home...) and let your little Bear choose for every piece of music.

Our Little Bear ended up choosing the medium first, then selected the colours he would use when the music started to play. At this point he often asked to start the music from all over to capture the whole music.

On some of the artworks he got completely spontaneous and used mixed media: paint, crayon, then paint dripped with a pipette, then the bubbles blown with a straw. Or just used many crayons at the same time.

With each music little Bear started a new piece of art.

Here is some of the artworks and the music they were inspired by.

(I am linking the music from youtube, but strongly suggest that when you do this activity with your little Bear, do not show any visuals, just listen the music and stimulate the ears only!):