BACKGROUND Finger Painting as a medium for artistic expression is intended to be applied with the fingers; it is used as a tool for

mark making. The history of finger painting dates back to ancient times where there is proof of its use in the primitive caves of southwestern France. This medium was also valuable to the time of Leonardo Da Vinci and the Indians of the Southwest where it was used for healing ceremonies. In eight-century China, a Chinese painter named Gao Qipei (1672-1732), created a unique style during the golden era of finger painting in China. He used the points of his fingers, his fingernails for lines, and his whole hand for large strokes. Today, finger painting in China remains to be a serious art, as evidenced by Xiao Zenglei, Wang Jinhua and Liu Doujin. Last century, finger painting has been rediscovered as an educational and psychiatric tool by Ruth Faison Shaw in 1926 in Rome, Italy. With Faisons contribution, today finger painting has been used as the starting point of kids learning colors & texture, promoting hand-eye coordination and the development of hands. Finger painting is also recognized to have therapeutic qualities to help kids and adults express their emotions when words are not enough. Ruth Faison Shaws breakthrough with finger painting had a similar method to Jackson Pollocks gestural abstraction or action painting. Pollock was recognized to value the subconscious mind and its influence in the creation of art, he was also aware of the psychoanalytic theory and the automatism of the Surrealists.

Furthermore in 1985, Chuck Close, a recognized painter also directly applied pigment with his fingertips in his painting Fanny/Fingerpainting. In the Philippines, finger painting has been recognized as an art medium and an activity for children in preschool. A handful of professional painters such as Rafael Ka Paeng Pacheco and Felix Amoncio use finger painting as their main medium. Ever since 2008, Steven Sprang released an application for the iPhone, and iPad called Brushes. Weeks later, Stef Kardos, an art director at Disney, released a collection of finger painting art he made on his blog. Soon, a Flickr group soon formed around the Brushes App and accumulated vast amounts of diverse and creative digital painters. The trend was covered on the Telegraph and Wired. Today, there are thousands of iPhone and iPad finger paintings.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION The project is an info website about finger painting that seeks to promote it as an art style, specifically for teenagers and young adults by providing an online resource that shows its history, and demonstrates the process of finger painting.

RATIONALE Finger Painting is one of the first artistic steps children take on in their preschool years. It is a therapeutic tool that helps them express their emotions when words are not enough. It also develops their senses of touch and sight of the texture and color of the paint. The importance of this is society benefits from

well-raised and educated children. As children grow older, activities from their preschool days will benefit them for the rest of their lives, if they do so grow to be painters. According to studies tested on children from the book Finger Painting: The Developmental Aspects by Lucile H. Blum and Anna Dragositz, Finger Painting is concluded to be a foundation or building block for becoming an artist/painter since it solidifies ones skills in mark making. This is one of the reasons why people are taught finger painting at a young age. Recognized people like Ruth Faison (the First Lady of Finger Painting), Jackson Pollock (created the 2nd most valuable painting in the world until today, 140 million dollars), Rafael Paeng Pacheco (Father of Finger Painting in the Philippines) have all used the style of finger painting. It is a given that children undertake finger painting in preschool and also summer painting programs that are focused on them. The difficulty to address is the artistically inclined young adults and teenagers who have forgotten or are not confident of the basic principles of painting. Educating and promoting finger painting can help retain their memory of the texture, fluidity of paint and develop their eye-hand coordination; thus being able to paint with a brush, fingers, or any mark making tool. This project will help Young Adults and teenagers who are artistically inclined but have deficiencies in mark making techniques when it comes to painting.

Using a website as a medium to promote finger painting has its advantage such as being able to be accessed by a global audience, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Moreover, it has the ability to be shared by individuals through community websites like Facebook and Youtube which is part of the proponents intention of promoting.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES This project seeks to: 1. Give an overview of finger painting as an art style; 2. Explain the advantages of finger painting as a painting style for beginners; and 3. Promote finger painting as a means of artistic expression.

COMMUNICATION OBJECTIVES This project aims to express that: For Project Objective 1: Give an overview of finger painting as an art style a. Finger painting has a considerable history; b. Finger painting has been used by recognized painters. For Project Objective 2: Explain the advantages of finger painting as a painting style for beginners a. The benefits of finger painting can be acquired through recurring practice;

b. Recurring practices of finger painting can let alone discover a personal vocabulary of motion. For Project Objective 3: Promote finger painting as a means of artistic expression a. Fingers allow us to express ourselves; b. The hand itself is a piece of art.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES This project will be promoted through: Promotional videos uploaded in social networking sites. Web carnivals Search Engine Optimization

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Framing Theory The framing theory states that media focuses attention on certain events and then places them within a field of meaning. (University of Twente) This field of meaning can affect the audiences thoughts and behaviors by the way it was presented to them. In the case of finger painting, the proponent believes that it is likely for media to commonly frame finger painting with children such as summer painting programs, books on childcare, and activities in preschool making it perceived by

society as something juvenile to the extent that it is only intended for children as an amusement. The proponent believes that this theory may help guide the project in communicating to the target audience on producing a fresh perception on finger painting.

PROJECT BRIEF Technical Description The website is intended to be an infosite containing a brief history of finger painting, a profile of well known artists who have used finger painting as a medium, a compilation of finger painting techniques and a section for time lapse videos demonstrating finger painting. The compilation of finger painting techniques will be borrowed from methods of various artists. Artists such as Ruth Faison, Odd Nerdrum, Jackson Pollock, the Surrealists and many more. This section and also the section of time lapse videos will serve as learning aids as well as to give an impression to show that it is used by professional artists.

Content Outline Home The homepage will contain as short introduction to welcome the visitor of the website. Finger Painting

This page will contain inside pages such as a brief history of finger painting and profile containing recognized painters who have used finger painting in their works. Demonstrations This page will include a collection of videos demonstrating finger painting. Guide to Finger Painting This page will have tutorials and techniques borrowed from recognized painters. About The About page will contain information about the objectives of this website and what the website is all about. Contact This page will contain a contact form for people to send private messages easily through email.

Components Web Info o 1024x768 screen size o .html file o Flash enabled o Youtube (embedded) o Google Analytics (embedded)

Audience, Beneficiary and Market Profile Age: 13 to 30 Gender: M/F Socio-economic status: A, B Other cultural and behavioral determinants: Would like to learn how to paint; looking for an artistic venue; unsure about basic skills. Sample Audiences Juan Dela Cruz is a 19 year Multimedia Artist at the School of Design and Arts of De La Salle College of Saint Benilde in Malate. He has been interested in drawing since he was only 7 years old. Since he started college, he had found a handful of talented, skillful, and artistic students in his course, specifically the ones who created works that show impact, creativity, and skill in drawing and painting. Some other students he met were limited to their own style of art and design such as cartoons and flat figures from repetitive drawing and hobby. Most of his classmates dont seem to paint or draw a lot traditionally as they seem to depend mostly on the graphic software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Juan, after graduating from college, wants to be an illustrator from highpaying companies that obviously requires great skill in drawing and painting but then realizes that he is stumped at why he cant be different from his other classmates in terms of style. He has grown to learning how to draw from the step by step approach to drawing anime and comic book superheroes, the same way

of learning his classmates use. Juan wants to discover his own vocabulary of motion as he is only fixed to draw from the books he read.

Scope and Limitations The proponent will seek to primarily focus on traditional finger painting (pigment) as its main content, not digital finger painting. It is also important that the proponent is only served as a supplement for painting to encourage users to feel and practice painting with bare fingers for the purpose of learning texture, fluidity, and viscosity of applying paint on the canvas, as well as gaining knowledge on muscle memory and eye-hand coordination. Finger painting demonstration videos will be featured as time-lapse videos without any voice narration to explain the video. An informative article will be presented below the video.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND WORKS Finger Painting: The Developmental Aspects Blum, Lucile H. and Dragositz, Anna Blackwell Publishing, September 1947

Finger Painting: The Developmental Aspects by Lucile H. Blum and Anna Dragositz, contains a series of tests done to two groups of children who belong to the 1st and 6th grade. The studies were designed to show about the development of the average child to finger painting. The subjects were 15 girls and 9 boys in the first grade and 17 girls and 12 boys in the sixth grade who were tested in the areas of color preference, movement, representation, and concept formation. In behalf of supporting the last two project objectives of this project, the result of the analysis of the movement test showed finger painting offers development in finer motor control as evidence of the fact that there is a decrease in the use of the whole hand for painting and in general an increase in the use of fingers, individually and in combination. In addition, the outcome of the analysis indicated improvement in representation to the extent where the paint was smoothed and the blending of colors and the degree to which the surface of the paper was covered with paint. Furthermore, the test for concept formation was evidenced by the fact that there was an increase from the first to the sixth grade in the number of titles dealing with general terms rather than specifics. By the end of the reading, they conclude that repeated experience with this medium encourages facility of expression and productions which are truly things of beauty, as workers in this field can indicate.

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Why Finger Painting Preschoolers are Good for the Economy Klingbeil, Cailynn Unlimited, September 2011 In this article, Cailynn Klingbeil discusses the importance of preschool to children. Activities children undertake in preschool such as finger painting, sharing stories, singing songs, learning the alphabet, counting numbers is stressed to contain economic value and has a large impact on children, their families and society as whole. The author shows studies from The Benefits and Costs of Good Child Care and The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children, containing evidence to support her statement. In relation to this study, the proponent believes that finger painting has its purpose of being practiced to children in early education to develop fine motor skills. Same reason to suppose that other preschool activities also has its own importance to develop a foundation on certain skills. This article will be helpful in supporting finger painting as a focus. The secret behind Mona Lisas smile Gray, Richard The Telegraph, 2010 In 2010, a group of scientists held by Dr. Philippe Walter led a study on Leonardo Da Vincis Mona Lisa by using a technique known as x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to allow them to examine the layers of paint in detail. The findings concluded to suggest that the painting contained 40 layers of thin pigment which was smeared with his bare fingers to create the sfumato effect. With Leonardo Da Vincis use of medium, it shows that finger painting alone can achieve a certain value of realism as opposed to the brush. The 11

difference between the marks created by the brush and fingers is that brush marks create lines and contours as different to the marks of the fingers where it creates thin circular dabs of paint. The solution to painting to the extent of realism is to avoid making contours as much as possible. The interesting discovery of Da Vinci using his own fingers to paint the Mona Lisa may create some influence for people to use this technique.

Finger Painting: Ruth Faison Shaw, an expert, shows how it should be done Life Magazine Time Inc., July 1941 In this article, Shaw demonstrated in the visuals her techniques in finger painting. She showed a series of her process in painting with a 16 by 22 inch piece of paper, which she moistened and placed a lump of paint on the paper. She then pressed the paint flat and began to paint freely. She states (while finger painting) painters followed their fantasies, often creating symbols, and were encouraged to experiment. With the imagination simulated, the finished pictures ranged from the pictorial to the abstract., I never start painting with a definite composition in mind, for finger painting aids the imagination and gives a delight in creating things subconsciously, things that one may not even have seen or dreamed of before. In relation to the project, the article is helpful in supporting finger painting as a means of artistic expression. Shaw believed the potential finger painting can offer to young artists. Her contribution led to using finger painting as an educational and psychiatric tool.

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Interview with Rafael Pacheco Rafael Pacheco Louigi Abelardo, 2012 In March 2012, Rafael Paeng Pacheco who is recognized as the Father of Finger Painting was interviewed by the proponent. The artist has been known to perform finger painting to a live audience numerous times, as well as giving talks in UP Diliman. The professional artist stated in the interview that finger painting has importance in terms of developing the persons spatial intelligence, the motor control of the fingers, and the knowledge on the texture and fluidity of the paint. He also encourages people of all ages who would want to learn how to paint to use finger painting as their first medium. The project will greatly benefit from what the artist stated during the interview as he has been using finger painting as his medium for more than 40 years. Fingerpainterd.it Murtaugh, Susan. Fingerpainted.it, 2010

Similar websites such as Fingerpainted.it focus on digital finger painting such as painting on touch-screen technology as the primary content, containing tutorials, demonstrations, and a modest information on history. The difference of the proponent with this similar website is it will focus on the traditional aspect of finger painting, painting with pigment, and demonstrate techniques passed on by Ruth Shaw Faison, Odd Nerdrum, Leonardo Da Vinci, and so forth. 13

The Art Dojo Dr. Tan Ching Yam The Art Dojo, March 2010 http://theartdojo.com/ The Art Dojo is a website by Dr. Tan Ching Yam aimed to promote Chinese painting, finger painting and art therapy. Though this website only has minimal tutorials, it offers painting classes based in Singapore. Its main purpose in connection with the project is to support the Chinese style of finger painting. The techniques of Chinese finger painting have been presented as a full text tutorial without any demonstration or visual aid for the audience to observe. To learn more on finger painting, interested viewers must enroll for classes.

Related Works: The Art Nerdrum Technique Research Pages Derek Van Derven Derek Van Derven Web Development, 2010 http://oddnerdrum.info/ The Art Nerdrum Technique Reasearch Pages by Derek Van Derven is an info website that contains an extensive collection of finger painting techniques borrowed from and dedicated for the Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum. The website also contains a series of videos demonstrating Nerdrums techniques to finger painting. The difference of this website with the proponent is that the project will focus more on the general aspect of finger painting, where in this website its only focus is borrowed from the teachings of Odd Nerdrum.

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Finger Painting on the Apple Ipad from the live model by David Jon Kassan David Jon Kassan David Jon Kassan, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OLP4nbAVA4

In June 2010, David Kassan released his own instructional and promotional video of finger painting on the Ipad via live stream. Days after its release, the video went viral on the internet because of the faultless demonstration of painting without a brush and showed impressive skill. Wellknown websites such as Gizmodo, Apple, Asylum, Youtube and Twitter have embedded and given this video 1.5 million views and counting. There was an initial increase in sales for the Ipad, notably because it gave painters opportunity to paint portably. On Sept 2010, David Kassan was interviewed by Contessa Brewer on MSNBC for the viral video. Possibly, a promotional video recreating David Kassans video without using an iPad and by using real paint may also have potential to promoting this medium depending on the quality and skillful demonstration the proponent can execute. (Materpiece) Maureira, Fabian Gaete Denis Budkov, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGJCBGhyO7o In January 8, 2012, a 2:20 minute finger painting demonstration video of Fabian Gaete Maureira was released on Youtube. As of March 31, 2012, the video has approximately made 11.6 million views because the painter demonstrated finger painting with remarkable skill and speed. Fabian Maureira 15

uses finger painting as his product to . He paints on the streets of Chile giving out a performance and service for selling glass paintings he makes in less than three minutes. This video has similar aspects to David Kassans finger painting demonstration. The only difference is that the finger painter used real pigment, a similar initiative for the proponent to demonstrate finger painting.

PROPOSED METHODOLOGY Pre-production For preparing the website, content such as informative text, videos, pictures, and other essential elements to create the visual design will be meditated at this stage. By doing this, text (articles, info on the history of finger painting, etc) and visual elements (website design, videos, pictures) that are aimed to explain the project objectives should be completed. Moreover, Finger painting demonstrations will be recorded for the purpose of accomplishing project objective no. 2. Production At the production stage, the coding for the website and compiling of visual elements acquired or created will be executed at this stage. Programs such as Adobe Dreamweaver will be the main software to code and compile the website. Finger painting demonstration videos will be edited then uploaded at this stage Post-production

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By the beginning of this stage, all the mediums such as the prepared website is expected to be online and ready to be visited. At this stage, promotion and advertising will start through social networks such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.

REFERENCES Pacheco, Rafael.Professional Finger Painter, phone interview, April 25, 2012. Klingbeil, Cailynn. Why Finger Painting Preschoolers are Good for the Economy, Unlimited. 07/01/2011. Accessed 03/28/2012. http://www.unlimitedmagazine.com/2011/09/why-fingerpainting-preschoolers-aregood-for-the-economy/ Blum, Lucile H. and Dragositz, Anna. Finger Painting: The Developmental Aspects, New York: Blackwell Publishing, Sep., 1947 Gray, Richard. The secret behind Mona Lisas smile. The Telegraph. 08/22/2010. Accessed 03/28/2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artnews/7957801/The-secret-behind-Mona-Lisas-smile.html Finger Painting: Ruth Faison Shaw, an expert shows how it should be done. Life, July 1941: 39, Time Inc. 3 March 2012. http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=hUwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39&dq=ruth+fais on+shaw+shows+how+it+should+be+done&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3myBTCHC62tiQeN5JSnBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ruth%20faison%20shaw%20s hows%20how%20it%20should%20be%20done&f=false Murtaugh, Susan. About Finger Painted. FingerPainted.it.
Gombrich, E. "Style", in Preziosi, D. (ed.) The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 150. ISBN 978-0-7148-2991-

The Art Dojo Dr. Tan Ching Yam The Art Dojo, March 2010 http://theartdojo.com/ The Art DojoThe Art Dojo. 03/01/2010. Accessed 03/28/2012. www.thearttdojo.com The Art Dojo. The Art Dojo. Accessed 03/24/12. http://theartdojo.com

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Provincial Government of Laguna. Department of Tourism of Laguna. Accessed 03/24/12. http://laguna.com.ph/provincial_government

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