Painting competition for the age groups 4-12 years

By Heidi Trautmann

Boats sailing into the setting sun, mountains with the national flags on top, villages with all shops and cars in neighbourhood streets, a football field, things the children had decided to like best in Cyprus and they sent it in to the Russian Cyprus Observer following the invitation to participate in a painting competition. Altogether 30 paintings were delivered to the editor-in-chief of the Russian newspaper Observer, Yuliya Skripko,  who had organized the event. She had asked three artists of different nationalities - to give it an international touch - to determine the winners. Svetlana Turgut, a Russian artist who entertains her own Arlekino Theatre with hand-made hand puppets; Salıh Çizel, an artist from Lapta where he has his studio and gallery, the Rönesans Gallery; and myself, Heidi from the mountains…ahhh from Yeşiltepe where the hills are always green if we believe the name.

It was not easy for us to make a decision; we did not know the names or age of the young artists when we stood over the paintings; there were many drawings, water colour and acrylic paintings that we were studying and enjoying,  but we had to decide which ones were….not the best from the amount of work that was put into the painting,  but what came closest to the theme and from the artistic point of view, ….what is it that they find good that they thought it worth of showing it in a painting;  some of the paintings you could see had some helping hands, adult touch-ups, others  got lost in so much detail work that it could have been anywhere.

The winners are:

Five-Finger Mountains and nature: Matvey Zabrodin (12)

The house in the forest; Alexandr Aleksandrov (5)

Church and Blue Door: the two sisters Aylin (6)  and Selin (5) Sandybayeva

It was a real party when we all met at the Akpinar Café in Girne, the children with moms and dads, and we took pictures of all of us together, we handed them the certificates and the prizes, sketch blocks and drawing tools donated by ‘Cyprus Pines Rent a Car’. Svetlana and Yuliya and  another young Russian friend created further party competitions : drawing their moms and those had to guess later whose portrait belonged to which mom. At the end they all did a collage of the Island of Cyprus with buttons and glitter, a big poster which is going to be hung up in the Cyprus Observer Office in Karaoğlanoğlu. Salıh Çizel sat with the kids and parents and asked them about their life here.

I think it is a very good idea to make the children think about the country their parents have chosen to live in. It is a first and important step to get involved, to integrate themselves and to be fully accepted and respected because art is a language everybody in the world speaks and understands.

This activity should be repeated also among other schools, other nationalities, in order to create one common level for all of us.

By the way, Yuliya Skripko, editor-in-chief of the Russian Observer is organizing other events with children as well, as I was told by Salıh who had taken part in it last year, in planting trees in an area which was allotted to them by the Forestry Department. They will go again this year in February when it is planting season.