Club de Arte 2.05: Superhero masks

THEME OF WEEK 2:05:  My Superhero's Mask

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

and the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  For the children to create one of the key parts of their superhero or super-heroines costume - the mask! The mask that their character uses to hide their 'true' identity from their foes.

  

PROCESS: 

1. Facilitators pre-prepare the bases for the masks, in various shapes, from thin flexible card with elastic stapled to the back.

2. The kids choose the base shape that they like and decorate it using any combination of tin foil, shiny coloured papers, coloured tissue paper, colourful glittery pipe cleaners, glitter, feathers and sequins, attaching everything with silicone and colourful tapes and adding in any drawn details they like with marker pens. 

MATERIALS: Thin card, scalpel, elastic, stapler and staples, tin foil, shiny coloured papers, scissors, colourful tissue paper, silicone, glue, permanent markers, feathers, glitter, sequins and pipe cleaner.

This has got to have been one of our most creative and fun sessions in this Superhero project so far.  Take a look at the wonderful masks that the kids came up with…

In Socio Vivienda:

 In Sergio Toral: 

And in Nueva Prosperina:

Here´s a rare opportunity to meet Blanca, our brilliant Art Club photographer who is normally behind the lens, here she is with Ronald and the kids in Nueva Prosperina.  Almost all the photos in these posts about Art Club are Blanca´s work - thank you Blanquita!

 

The kids had great fun trying on their masks, and this turned out to be a great photo opportunity!

Happy Days...

…at this point at the end of June the kids are fully immersed in this Superhero project and you can see from the smiles here that they are definitely enjoying themselves!

Keep an eye out for updates over the coming weeks as the children finish their costumes and use them to tell their characters' stories.

:-)

Club de Arte 2.04: Superhero shields

THEME OF WEEK 2:04:  My Superhero's Shield

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

and the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  For the children to continue imagining their superhero character, and to ask themselves what kind of a shield their superhero or heroine needs to protect him or herself with.  For each child to create this shield to be a part of their costume.  

PROCESS:

1.  Facilitators pre-prepare different shield shapes from cardboard to be used as the base for the kids designs.

2.  Each child picks a cardboard shield base and uses silicone and masking tape to secure sections of cardboard egg boxes to it for reinforcement and design.  Once it is all secured the kids paint the shield with colours and pattern of their choosing.

3. Children that would like to can create a 'badge' or logo from Fomix to add to the front of their shield, decorating it with the letters of the name of their superhero if they choose to.

4. Facilitators and children: fold up and staple newspaper into thick, strong lengths of about 5cm width. Fold the ends in on themselves and use silicone and masking tape to secure this to the back of the shield as a firm handle.

MATERIALS: Cardboard, scalpel, masking tape, egg boxes/ egg trays, acrylic paint, paintbrushes, Fomix, newspaper, staples and stapler.

HAVE A LOOK AT THE VARIETY OF SHIELD DESIGNS THAT THE KIDS CAME UP WITH:

In Socio Vivienda...

In Sergio Toral...

And in Nueva Prosperina...

Club de Arte 2.03: Superhero Tools

THEME OF WEEK 2:03:  My Superhero's Tools

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

and the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  For the children to imagine what tools their superhero or super-heroine character needs to be able to achieve his or her mission, and to create these physically to be a part of their costume.

PROCESS:

1.  Facilitators pre-cut a variety of cardboard tool shapes (see the photo below).

2. Children choose which tool design they would like to create from the range of examples.   For those that have handles the children use scraps of coloured paper to fill clear plastic bottles, then add the cardboard tool with tape and silicone, and decorate with tin-foil or shiny papers, Fomix and coloured tapes.  For wrist-attached tools, the children use toilet rolls as the base of their tool, attaching the tool head with silicone and tape and decorating as above.

MATERIALS: Empty, washed plastic bottles, toilet roll tubes, cardboard, scalpel, scissors, silicone, masking tape, colourful electrical tapes, permanent markers, tinfoil, shiny papers, colour-coded scraps of a variety of papers, colourful Fomix.

HAVE A LOOK AT THE TOOLS THE CHILDREN CREATED:

In Nueva Prosperina...

In Socio Vivienda...

In Sergio Toral...

Club de Arte 2.02: Our Personal Superheroes and Super-heroines

THEME OF WEEK 2:02:  Our own personal Superheroes and Super-heroines

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

and the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  Continuing on from the group-imagined Superheroes and Super-heroines of last week the children this week imagined and designed their own personal super-characters, again thinking about what their name and super-power would be.   

NB. Noticing in the first session with Socio Vivienda that some of the younger or less confident kids struggled with drawing their characters from scratch I created sheets of drawn outlines of boys, girls, masks, capes, boots, tools, weapons and vehicles for the kids to cut-out, stick and colour-in to create their super-characters in the following sessions.  

Having these cut-out-stick-&-colour sheets for Sergio Toral and Nueva Prosperina worked really well in facilitating the kids in creating their own original superhero and heroine characters.  It was really interesting to observe the various choices that the different children made about how much they would use the sheets.  Some used the sheets for all parts of their character, others combined their own drawing with some imagery from the sheets and others choose to draw their entire character themselves.  This was an interesting learning point for me as a facilitator in recognising the importance and value of children who are new to art processes or lack confidence having reference to material to copy from or use directly in their work, in order to begin to build their own internal library of images.


PROCESS:
1. Facilitator preparation of cut-out-stick-&-colour sheets with outlines of boys, girls, masks, boots, capes, vehicles, tools, weapons, shields etc.
2. Kids design their own personal superhero or super-heronine character with any combination of drawing and cut-&-stick imagery that they want.  
3. Kids write the name and special power of their super-character on their design.

MATERIALS: cut-out-&-stick sheets, felt pens, pencils, rubbers, sharpeners, scissors, glue, characters from the  previous week, ref. images

MEET THE KIDS' SUPER-CHARACTERS...

…from SERGIO TORAL:

…from NUEVA PROSPERINA:

 …and from SOCIO VIVIENDA:

In Socio Vivienda the kids got one step ahead and made their super-characters' capes as well, using colourful rice sacs as the base and decorating them with marker-pen drawings and Fomix designs:

Keep an eye out here over the upcoming weeks 

as all of the kids start to create their superhero costumes and props. 

:-)

Club de Arte 2.01: Introduction to Superheroes and Super-heroines

THEME FOR WEEK 1 OF STAGE 2 OF ART CLUB 2014:

An Introduction to Superheroes and Super-heroines

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

and the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  So with the departures of both Jonny and Olivia, our Art Club team is now Ronald, Blanca and myself, and this week we launched stage 2 of Art Club 2014: Our Superheroes!  For this introductory session we first discussed who superheroes are and what makes them special or different, using a big poster full of images of famous superheroes and heroines and their costumes, tools and logos as reference.  We identified that they all have super-powers or highly developed abilities, such as flying as fast as light, using X-rays, being martial arts experts or reading minds, and that we recognise them as superheroes because of their costumes which include any combination of masks, capes, tools, weapons, shields and logos.  As an initial creative exercise we asked the kids to collaborate in small groups to come up with their own original superheroes and heroines. 

PROCESS: 

1. Facilitator's pre-prepare outline drawings of boys and girls on large sheets of paper, with the question above "What does a Superhero (or Super-heronine) need?" 
2. As a big group discuss what makes superheroes and heroines different and special and how we identify them, using images of recognised super characters as reference.
3.  The children work in small groups, boys with boys and girls with girls, to come up with their ideas for a superhero or heroine   They collaborate within their groups to transform the outline of the boy or girl on their sheet of paper into a super-character by using collage and drawing to create the costume and props that their character needs.  



MATERIALS: Large reference poster with images of recognised superheroes and heroines showing their costumes, tools and logos, large outline drawings of boys and girls, marker pens, tissue paper, shiny paper, coloured paper, scissors and glue.

MEET THE KIDS' SUPERHEROES AND SUPER-HEROINES:

NUEVA PROSPERINA'S SUPERHEROES: (clockwise from top left)"Super EM HULK, uses X-rays  / "Super Mujer Rosada [Super Pink Woman] protects families with her sword" / "Super Rayo-X, can fly, has X-rays and elastic feet" / "Super Sesp" /  "Jeremi y Ricado Super" / "Super Miguel-Angel" / "La Chica Maravilla"

SERGIO TORAL'S SUPERHEROES: (clockwise from top left)"Super Dragon Ku" / "La Poderosa Jali" / "Drikus, has the power of Goku,Vegetu, Batman and Superman" / "Siquico, reads minds" "La Chica Rayos"

SOCIO VIVIENDA'S SUPERHEROES: (left to right)"Capitan Barcelona, flies with power"/ girl super heroine with rays coming from the palms of her hands / "Vidaman"

A brilliantly creative start to this new stage of Art Club!  

Keep a look out here as the children start to develop their own personal super-characters.  

Life in-between Club de Arte! :-)

"Guayaquil, City of Life" Parque Historico, Guayaquil

As I write I am into my fifth month of placement with the Charlotte Miller Art Project here in Guayaquil, and here are a few photos to let you know what I've been getting up to in my time outside the art workshops at Juconi.   The parrots and iguanas above were photographed on a weekend visit one afternoon to the zoo at the Parque Historico.  I also had the chance on our Easter break to visit my friend Chisti in Quito and head to the beach at Salinas with friends from Guayaquil.  Ty and I watched the solar eclipse (partly obscured by clouds) one evening from the beach at Playas, where Ty also had a  mountain bike race one Sunday that ended him up on a rehydration drip at home the following day.   

Chisti!! Mi hermanita en Quito! :-)

The beach at Salinas with Becky and Ty

Brazilian friend Patrick, from the And'Art residency in Morocco, came to visit with his German friend Oliver, who shared a lot with me about his experiences with Ayahuasca, showing me the beautiful prints below, which reminded me of the animation videos that Hernan had shown me in Bolivia:

KOSHOSKA from Warmayllu on Vimeo.

Other aspects of life have been regular yoga classes with the lovely folk at Ganesha studios here in Guayaquil.  In all honesty these photos below are rather deceptive in that it looks all tranquility and balance when really the reality of the sessions is that there is profuse amounts of sweating and on the few occasions that I have tried out acro-yoga (the two photos on the right) it has been a battle of nerves about falling and learning to trust the other person and trying not to grip them too hard!  The regular weekly sessions are a mixture of hatha, ashtanga and aero-yoga, like the photo on the far left where Jonny and I are in the swings.  Over these months with Jonny yoga has become a regular part of our after-work schedule and now that he's gone home I'm going to carry on.  Another British workmate, Becky, has just signed up so it looks like I'll still have a yoga buddy! :-)

Another character who has been part of life here in Guayaquil has been Smog, a tiny wee kitten that we found in the street one night by the mechanic's on the way to yoga. Sadly the poor wee lad died after only a month when he ate something that poisoned him, and not even the vet could help.  While he was alive he was a great little house buddy, manically lively and jumping around all over the place one minute and zonked the next.  I'll miss his wee fluffy-self sleeping on my belly or the crook of my arm.

Give it another month or so and I'll update again with some non-work photos. 

(left to right) Becky, Tyrone, me, Helen, Fransisco, Tania and Rory,(countries left to right) England, Ecuador, Scotland, Scotland, Ecuador, Mexico, England :-) 

p.s. here's some photos from a party celebrating the British Queen's birthday at the Consul's house by the beach at Punta Blanca last weekend! It had a distinct Ascot-crossed-with-a-wedding feel about it with the 'all-white-clothes-plus-sombrero' instruction on the invitation, the many crazy-hats (my favourite a lady with many tiny white doves attached to her sombrero), and piles of delicious food and free booze all day.  My favourite part was hanging out bare-foot on the beach! Thank's Queenie! 

:-)