Mandy Hallenius, an artist and art teacher, says children can master the skills needed to draw or paint whatever they can imagine. To help children gain these skills, as well as open up many avenues for cognitive development, the classic method of training visual artists should be salvaged from the past and incorporated into the curriculum today. She co-founded the DaVinci Initiative (DVI) with this objective in mind.
After all, if these skills already exist and can be taught, why not use them? Why should we reinvent the wheel? “It’s more efficient, more practical, to use the knowledge of engineering rather than relearn how to build from scratch,” Hallenius said.
Creativity and skill is not an either/or proposition.
