This week I was mesmerized by Shorashim’s paintings, specifically their paint strokes.
This session of yetzirah was pretty open-ended, as we were painting a background for a page in their end-of-the-year reflection books. The only prompt children were given was: “Cover the page in tzevah (color)!” using crayons then watercolor.
I began to notice a Shorashim boy painting slower than his usual rapid-fire scribbling speed (it should be noted here that scribbling is a totally legitimate and needed step in the development of fine motor skills). Then I saw he was (knowingly or unknowingly) varying the pressure of his brush to the page. I tried to keep quiet while he experimented and just snapped pictures.
The other children in Shorashim started to notice and began using his techniques of varying pressure, swirling and scribbling… and eventually all bets were off and they began blowing the paint around the page!
