By Express News Service CHENNAI: Inexperienced brushstrokes fill in a picture of a house painted on a wall. The bright pink, blue, yellow and red house stands beside a blue lake with a redfish and a field of rabbits. This was the scene at the creative art workshop held by The Little Theatre at the Institute of Children’s Health, Egmore on Monday. Assisted by the wall painter Jagruthi Gulechha, the wall painting workshop was held for cancer and palliative care patients in the ICH. The children painted the glass whiteboards, which were sponsored by Saint Gobain, outside the Creative Therapy centre. “I am guiding them through it, but once they get the hang of it, they choose the colours and parts they want to do. They are painting very well, especially for children who haven’t used a paintbrush many times before. I find that when you paint on a vertical surface, you paint better,” said Gulechha, who has been a professional wall-painter for five years now. This marks the fourth workshop since the centre was opened on May 31 this year. “We hold workshops every Monday and Wednesday. When the children attend the workshop, there is brightness and happiness in the room and on their faces. Art therapy is a way of dealing with pain. Children like these activities and it makes them happy, which helps them with the pain,” said Aysha Rau, founder and managing trustee, The Little Theatre. Rau said that she hopes that they will be able to secure more funding in the future to conduct creative art workshops daily while paying the artists who work with the children. “As of now, everyone is doing it for free and out of goodwill. They should get paid for their work too,” said Rau.

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