We have been in the workshop of Cerralbo museum in Madrid in a very well organized activity, like all that he does, the Association Talking in Art. And they are making a lot of proposals to close the course and before the desired vacation begins. The workshops are intended for children and youth and they develop as a family.
We loved the Cerralbo Museum, an incredible space where you can enjoy some wonderful works collected throughout history. And it is that Don Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa, XVII Marquis de Cerralbo, conditioned the donation of the whole house and the works that are in it to the creation of a Foundation that endows capital and own purposes. The Government of Spain is the one that manages the Museum that is impressive and that deserves a visit. While we were in the workshop the space was being traveled by tourists that I imagine would be amazed at such wealth and the large number of works collected by the 17 Marquises.
One of the paintings that was in the entrance and that we analyzed with the children was of the Marquis de Cerralbo of one thousand five hundred and peak, XVI century. He saw the Marquis and an intrepid heroine. The heroine was Maria Pita who fought along with the rest of the citizens of La Coruña to defend themselves from the siege of Sir Francis Drake, the famous corsair or pirate who attacked the enemies of England in fulfillment of the missions entrusted to him by Queen Elizabeth I of England. Drake was a mercenary who sailed in his own ships, kept a part of the loot and did the dirty work of the conquests. The picture is impressive and full of brave defenders of La Coruña before a fleet of ships with more than 10,000 men from the pirate Drake.
This is an image of one of the rooms where we enjoy the explanations of Nacho, our monitor. We analyzed a chart that presented the Marquises of Cerralbo of the time in a painting by Pacheco, the teacher and then father-in-law of Velázquez.
The Board of Trustees that manages the Museum has been established since March 22, 1934 and can be visited although very carefully because the large number of works makes precautions extreme, for example, they didn't let us carry any hanging bags.
And then we did a workshop in which the children had to paint a fan! (the one in the picture is ours). For this there were a lot of materials: pencils and paper to make a sketch, and markers and brushes with paint to paint the fan. It is made of cloth and with plastic rods. We paint it in the area of the fabric exclusively to avoid colliding with the rods. Then we let it dry and we could take it folded.
One of the moments I like most about the workshop is when the monitors allow children to develop their ability to exhibit and explain the work done to the audience. It is the moment in which some children have a great time showing their creations and where others remain a little more blocked without commenting on the creation made. In these cases it is where you can see if the children learn to explain themselves and speak fluently in front of the audience, if they know how to explain their creation and if they can speak alone and without spokespersons.
My goal in the workshops is for the little girl to have fun and entertain herself and learn and then I can have a few minutes of creativity. I also like to be encouraged to exhibit the work done. In this workshop he had a great time, first because Talking in Art has a lot of experience and has been developing a method for kids to participate from the beginning. And in this workshop they made it very interactive because they told the children to identify if the picture was real or fictitious, if the work had any special details, for which they left some Wall-e binoculars that I loved (although they were little practical) and to observe and take note of the details of a vase. There were four vases, earth, wind, fire and water. We analyzed the water and it was full of details: mermaids, sea horses, Neptune, mythological fish, etc.
The workshop is free and is intended for children aged 6 to 12 accompanied by an adult. The Cerralbo Museum is in C / Ventura Rodríguez, 17 of Madrid. I recommend a visit to the Museum and if you can do the workshop you will have a great time.
Here I leave another of the photos. This time of dance room. You could not enter. It looked glorious and imagining it full of people dancing gave a bit of vertigo.
