Club de Arte 3:05: Rag Doll Heads

THEME OF WEEK 3:05, run in November 2014: Rag Doll Heads

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 complete the first part 1 of the 3-stage process of making their rag doll, using papiér-machê construction techniques.

PROCESS: 

1. Facilitators: pre-mix the glue paste: 1 part plain flour to 2 parts warm water + spoonful of salt (salt to prevent mould growing in humidity). Take in 2 x 5 bottles per session of 20-25 children.  

2. Children: each inflate a balloon.  Tear up strips of newspaper.  Cover the balloon in at least 4 layers of newspaper and glue.  Add egg carton cups for nose and eyes as desired, fixing them down with more strips of newspaper.  Tear up strips of thin white paper.  Cover the whole head with 1 or 2 layers of white paper.  Leave the head in the sun to dry.

  Balloon inflating in Sergio Toral

  Papier-machê in the playground of Nueva Prosperina...

     …and in the football pitch of Socio Vivienda 2.

MATERIALS FOR ‘RAG DOLL HEADS’

Instruction posters and examples. 

Balloons

newspaper (not yellowed newspaper as it won’t stick) 

thin white paper

small plastic pots to use as bases 

egg cartons

scissors

papíer-machê paste 

bowls

water, cloths and soap to clean up

camera

Definitely our messiest of the session of the year, this activity was really fun for the kids and took us out of the space of the church in Socio Vivienda 2 into the new setting of the open-air football pitch.

Note: The downside to working in the public setting was not being able to restrict the number of participants, so materials ran scarce and as there are a number of children in the group with destructive tendencies unfortunately a lot of the work was damaged as children began to kick around the drying heads as though they were footballs.