Summer break is on for children across the country and Istanbul Modern has a program of instructive, entertaining and artful activities for children aged seven to 12.

From today until Aug. 29, children are invited to attend 10 workshops that all promise rich content.Children will discover creativity from painting to costume design, animation, arrangement and architecture. Children will be able to take part in workshops that will help them interpret art and create artistic works with museum experts.

The workshops will be held twice a day, once at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. in the morning and another session at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. in the afternoon.

Here is some brief information about the workshops, which were specially designed for children to spend a fruitful summer in the city.

Paintings and costumes

Children will stretch their imagination in these workshops working with colors, stains and various art materials. They will watch a presentation of paintings from the master painters of the history of art and will learn about the periods and costumes in the presented paintings. Later, they will design costumes on dress forms and will complete the workshops by painting a picture for the figures who wear their designs.

What if we hear a painting?

Addressing various senses, this program draws inspiration from contemporary artists who use music in their paintings and create aural arrangements, and from composers who visualize their compositions with graphics. In the workshop starting with the examination of examples from the history of art, children will study the ways of listening to and imagining the sounds of colors, and shapes of a painting they choose. At the end of the program, they will create a visual arrangement and transform it into music to perform in the presence of their families.

Movements and paintings

In this workshop, children will get an opportunity to discover impressionism, cubism, abstract expressionism and many other movements of modern art by experiencing the artistic practices consisting of distinctive creation processes.

During the program, children will draw their patterns in the exhibition halls of the museum and create their portraits from different perspectives by looking at their photos taken in the workshop. Hence they will create paintings that will reveal their feelings and ideas within a game environment. The workshop will introduce various artistic ways of expressing themselves to children.

Silent cinema

In this workshop, children will create their groups and shoot their own short animation movies. They will listen to, play and interpret a scenario adapted from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. Prepared with the photos taken during this drama work, the movie will be presented to the children as an event to remember.

A place of dreams

This workshop invites children to learn the art of installation with artistic experiences. The program will take start with an exhibition tour and continue with word play. Children will create images with inspiration from certain words. They will draw and create big shapes using ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) material. The program will conclude with children arranging their designs in a corner of the workshop.

Statues from mud

This workshop invites children to expand their world of imagination by working with a natural material. In this program, children will use their own stories to create similar works to some of the artists exhibited at Istanbul Modern. Rather than their physical qualities, children will explore their inner selves and will learn many extraordinary ways of self-expression. They will materialize their habits and fears, that is, their uniqueness, by forming mud.

Pits and hills

The workshop uses relief art that has a long history and invites children to express their adventurous heroes with forms of mud. The workshop starts with a presentation containing examples from daily life and concludes with painting the compositions children created by re-molding and adding a natural material.

Printed bags

The workshop meets design with the art of serigraphy. Children will produce printing blocks during the first application. In the second step, they will design bags of fabric. The program will conclude with children applying the blocks to the bags they designed.

Nature on canvas

In this workshop, children will seek ways of painting nature not only with its appearances but also with the parts, leaves, plant bodies and other organic materials that form the nature. Children will imagine paintings on an empty canvas and will materialize their dreams by creating compositions.

Architects of the future

In this workshop, children will create their own cities by bringing specially designed geometric shapes together. They will draw the homes of creatures with inspiration from the nature and create environmentally friendly city models for the future by suggesting functional, ergonomic and aesthetic solutions.