Mail Art + Pen Friends = Dear You Art Project
In these wonderful comics by the 2nd graders at Arivu School I see a world of surprises, witty humor and friendship! The art of visual storytelling shows so much about the creative artists in Mysore, India. I am sure they loved reading the comics from their friends in Espoo, Finland and I KNOW that the Monkeys at Your School can't wait to receive these comics!
Thank you Samanvitha Rao for being such an inspiring and great Dear You Workshop Leader!
The Monkeys have found their other calling as comic artists!
From the looks of their character studies they have a great handle on how to convey emotions and feelings. Lotta drew a story that will happen over the summertime. Lotta's big sister will have a birthday party and she drew how the event will go. Let's all go! Olivia drew all the things she would like to do this summer such as swimming, going on an airplane (lentokone) and playing on the swings. Lumina's character study turned into a perfect way to learn Finnish!
Our friends at Arivu School in India are on summer holiday now, but when they'll return to a package of comics from the Monkeys :).
Have a beautiful summer holiday, everybody!
The Tigers impressed me so much not only with their comic strips, but how they can clearly show emotions in their drawn characters! We first made some character studies from one of the characters in their character. For example, since Paavo was the main character in his comic he decided to do a character study of himself. He drew what he looks like happy, sad, nervous, and even drew himself as if he was going to explode from an oversupply of energy!
Everybody did a wonderful job! The Mice in Vietnam will enjoy reading these during their summer holiday too!
The artists at The English School in Helsinki did a wonderful interpretation of the viewfinder project! I thought it was so clever how they traced directly onto the clear plastic paper! It seems like the students were posing for each other too. We are each other's muses :).
I'm sure their friends in Prague will be ecstatic when they receive these artworks!
Hello,
We are ready with our Sun Catchers!
Thanks for that idea again. You can guess that the kids were so inspired by the new idea.
We were discussing where light comes from and how. We made experimental research with different coloured papers and other different materials to see how light can get through! Also, we associated that with windows and as a result they wanted to make their own or one big "Light Colour Houses".
The kids said this about their task:
Leevi: "It was fun! Lovely colours!"
Rasmus S: "So hard to do..."
Veera:" It was nice thing to do!"
Miina: " It was lovely. but silk papers stuck on my fingers!!"
Andreas: " For me it was fun and easy.."
Rasmus V: " Stupid... boring.."
Miko: "I like it and light was so beautiful!"
Karl:"All was so nice and beautiful colours."
Sanni:"It was so fun choose colours, so nice!"
Mea: "Working together were the best!"
Eelis: "It was very hard to me, but still i like it!"
Helmi: "All colours were so beautiful!"
Teppo: "Hard to choose colours, but it was fun!"
Rebekka: "Fun task, also easy..."
We wish all of you a shining springtime!
Anne-Marie & Lumileopardit
And here we have the finished Light Colour Houses! Our shared village for everybody to basque in the warm light!
These profile self-portraits are like a mirror image of the artist! The Tigers did a wonderful job with their Light Works and had fun experimenting with this new technique.
Wow! Aleksi did a spot on job recreating his hair! His self-portrait had equally spiky and spunky hair as in real life. Nachu said she was trying to draw her skin color. Jonatan had a wonderful revelation when he put the yellow gel over the blue picture. He realized that blue + yellow = green. I'm happy that everybody had fun :).
Now for our Mice, we wonder what time does the sun set in Vietnam? Sending light to our friends in Hanoi!
In Finland, the change in light is one of the biggest differences we feel when moving from winter to spring. The Monkeys used the beautiful sunshine to make their artworks since this is one of the best things Finland has to offer right now!
We first talked about how to draw profiles and then experimented with different silk papers and paper cutting techniques. Some of the Monkeys got very detailed when drawing their profiles while others liked to add more collage and layering techniques into their pieces. Either way, the results are amazing and I hope our friends in India will like them too :).
Here are the Lumileopard's paintings from Vantaa, Finland. You can see the first signs of spring through the viewfinders! I wonder if their friends in Austria are also seeing the seasons change through their viewfinders. Anne-Marie, the Lumileopard's teacher, has shared so much great information with us! She says:
This Art task was so gorgeous and funny. Kids and adults were so excited about all working and screening. At first I told the children about the new themes and we were discussing what all of that means and how we can do this work. We then built our own viewfinder.
Next we made small groups and went out to search for good painting items and at same time we considered signs of spring. After that everyone painted their own watercolor landscape.
Some kids found their views easily, some of them had to seek them out longer. That view what is in Picture, can exhibit small detail from nature, or house's wall etc. or it can be also bigger view from landscape or even imagination topic ! The finished works were delightful!
I wrote some notes about what the kids named their works:
Rebekka: Firs, red house, stones.
Teppo: Firs, red stable, watergrass.
Eetu: Space and ufos
Veera: Sky, sun
Anna: Spruce and flowers
Jimi T: House, Big Flat
Andreas: Car, house and human being
Rasmus S: Colour of the sky
Karl: Spring is coming
Jimi P: Venetian blind and bricks
Doina: Spruce, sun and dry leaves
Eelis: Rainbow and sun
Sandra: All kind of colours
Moonika: Birds, clouds, sun, grass and spruce
Helmi: House and grass
Miina: Nursery's playsquare on sunny day
Aapo: Octopus on the wall
Leevi: Bus on the road
Adam: Stones, man is walking, sun and blue clouds
Have a nice spring there and lot of more fun with art and kids!
B.W : Anne-Marie and Snowleopards from Vantaa
We were so excited to receive our first package from our new friends in India! Aniish asked, "How can you draw that good?!" Ella asked, "Do you like the Monkeys- the animal and us?" Dante asked, "Is the boat in your painting going to Sweden?"
The Monkeys were discovering all special angles of their classroom with the help of their newly crafted viewfinders today. The viewfinders also helped us build a better composition.
Have a look at their paintings and then see if you can find where they found it in their room. It doesn't surprise me that there are a couple of watercolor paintings of fish and monkeys! Can you see why?
The Tigers and I started our session by making a viewfinder with our hands and seeing what is around us. We saw the trees outside the window, we saw the view to the downstairs where the Dolphins and Lions are, we saw the hearts on the windows and all the beautiful artwork hanging from the ceiling! Now have a look at how our views turned into beautiful watercolor paintings : )
We our curious how our views are the same and different from The Mice in Vietnam!
With love,
Arlene & The Tigers from Espoo, Finland
I see snow, cars, sun and a whole lot of adventures in these string stories by the Tigers! The Tigers soon figured out how to use the string to add texture and volume to their colored pencil drawings. Each one tells so much about themselves. I'm sure their friends in Vietnam will love these pieces of art!
The Monkeys are super excited about meeting their new friends in Mysore, India! Since this is their first piece of art to exchange, some of the Monkeys were trying new visual techniques on how to bring our worlds together. For example, Niklas and Lotta drew the Indian flag and Finnish flag on their paintings. Patrick and Hartti drew games that they like to play. Everybody enjoyed sharing a part of themselves with their new friends!
Hello Dears,
In Finland Valentine's Day is Ystävänpäivä, which means Friend's Day :). The artists at Päiväkoti Lystilä in Vantaa decided to make woolly socks as part of the string theme AND sing a song for their friends at Evangelischen Volksschule am Karlsplatz, Vienna.
Lumileopards think woolly socks are great because:
- here in Finnish winter we really need warm socks!
- and like warm socks, a good friend is important and really necessary to move on!
- every kid can easily make and have their own stylish design and be proud of that too!
- there are always two socks in a pair. We are stronger together as opposed to just one!
HAPPY VALENTINE's DAY <3
Lumileopardit & A-M
And here is Anne-Marie Keckman's translation of the Woolly Sock Song:
MY FRIEND
MY FRIEND IS LIKE A WOOL SOCK, IT WARMS ME AT WINTER,
AND MY FRIEND IS LIKE A MELLOW FLOWER, MAKES ME A SMILE!
SO TAKE MY HAND AND FOLLOW ME TO THE STRAND, I WILL SHOW YOU HOW THE SUN GOES DOWN BEHIND THE TREES, PAINTING THE SKY RED.
I'M SO LITTLE AND NEED A GUIDE TO TEACH ME HOW TO MAKE THIS WORLD BETTER!
SOMEDAY, WHEN I AM GROWN UP I WISH THAT,
I NEVER STOP LEARNING!
You can try to sing it too! :D
Toti and The Mice wanted to mix colors and do some a4 christmas cards for the Tigers using Salt Painting. Learn more about this art technique here:
http://www.oneperfectdayblog.net/2012/04/27/kids-art-raised-salt-painting/
The Mice and The Tigers met up online to sing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' together!
Once The Tigers mastered the art of making a pop up box everything became possible! Nachu was experimenting with writing her name in cursive. Jonatan made a pop up reindeer. Sreya said she wanted to give the sun to her friends in Vietnam. That's so thoughtful considering Finland could really use some right about now :). Ida went beyond the twofold card and made a pop up book!
The Tigers will mail these warm wishes to the Mice in Vietnam. Hyvää Joulua and Happy New Year!
The last session in Meilahti started off a bit differently than the others before it. I had a special guest: Arlene, the founder of Dear You workshops was there with me to tell about her latest installation piece. So we plunged to the world of installations and scratched the surface of performance art with a seasoned guide.
The outcome of the workshop was creative as always! We got a taste of Du Champ -style piece called Pen on the Floor, a miniature Pollock, Magic tricks of expectations, surprise performative art and framings and of course the Illuminati had it's hands on this workshop too.
We discovered that art is dialogue, a process where we interpret each other. Sometimes we get the gist of things and sometimes we get lost in translation but that's okay. No matter the distance we can always try to reach out to understand and find our horizons being broadened in the process. It's art when you call and treat is as such!
Using some of the words that the Dear You Artist in Meilahti mentioned, all in all we had a fun, new and magical ride on our Dear You journey!
- Nooralotta Ikonen
http://laiskia.blogspot.fi
Do you know how to play the guitar, do the baby freeze or do you just know really much about ice hockey? I surely don't but the talented fifth graders in Helsinki English School know!
This time at The English School we looked at our gifts. We pondered about how can we give them as presents to our friends. The word present has two meanings: one is something you give away and the other one is something you receive right at every moment, at the present. So a gift in it's most heartfelt way is you being present to the people around you. That means everyone of us can give a special gifts this Christmas by just being present and using the talents we have.
Some of us had a hard time seeing our own talent. But we needn't worry too much! Help was always near when friends cheered on at how good someone was at so many things. Sometimes we can't see our own talents because to us they're just everyday things while to others they might be a wonder. If you know how to do something really well, you might just need a reminder now and again from your friends on how good you actually are! We drew our talents in the stars that we sent to Prague and hope that they'll bring at least as much cheer there as we experienced when making them.
This gift giving doesn't have to stop at Christmas. We can all use our gifts and talents, no matter how small we think they are, every day and bring cheer and ease to others around us.
Let's have a gift filled Christmas and a talented new year!
- Nooralotta Ikonen
http://laiskia.blogspot.fi
Hello,
We have Christmas Holidays now and have been busy organizing happenings, presents and so on here in Vantaa, Finland. Thank you Simone and kids for your lovely posts. The kids got all those drawings you made!! They were so grateful and happy about that! This week we made a little surprise for your Christmas ... hope you will get it soon!
And there are also pics from our Party Room. We had a Winter theme where everyone could use their 5 senses.
Beautiful holidays to you all and Merry Christmas.
Love from Snowleopards and Anne-Marie
The Monkeys in Espoo, Finland were so happy to receive artwork in the mail from their friends in Nuuk, Greenland! We read each other's letters and messages.
Learning more about our friends gave us great ideas on how to make our Pop Up Holiday Cards. Since Leon's friend liked football, he decided to draw him a spotted football greeting card. Ella wanted to ask her friend questions about the painting she received. Ella wondered, "what animal did Misu draw? I think Minea's friend will surely like the surprise cat she made! hint: meow :)
Dear You,
Last workshop of this year was also my last contribution to this project. As you could sense all around the Panda Learning Center, Christmas are everywhere and I wanted to set up the workshop in this mood. I wanted to create a calm and peaceful atmosphere and to have time to chat with the students. This time we used just markers, scissors and blank white A4 paper. During the workshop we talked about Christmas time and what we would like to give to the students from Finland, which was really fun and I hope that you are going to see it soon. The biggest source for us was the licorice world, which we all remember from one of the the previous workshop in which we received pictures of licorice candies from Finland.
In the end, I especially wanted to thank my students for their intense attitude and high quality outcomes, also thanks to stuff of Panda Learning Center for providing me warm words and lunch, students from Finland for their funny letters and last but not least to Arlene Tucker coordinator of this project for patience and trust to give me space and time within Dear You project.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Prague
Veselé Vánoce a šťastný nový rok z Prahy
- Rudolf Samohejl
