Club de Arte 5: "Mi Animalito"

The animal friends made by the children in Nueva Prosperina: a whole army of bright pink pigs, a few sheep, a couple of snakes,a couple of iguanas, two cats, a dog and a horse!

ONGOING THEME: Our Art Club Community

WEEK 4: My Little Animal Friend

IDEA: For each child to create a small 3D animal puppet as a friend for their person puppet, and to draw the animal a profile detailing their name and their positive qualities.

AIMS: For the children to continue settling into the community of Club de Arte and to reflect on what positive qualities are important to them.

"My Animal" instruction sheet and animal prompt sheet with suggestions for positive qualities the children might like to choose from: free, independent, noble, observant, athletic, vigilant, protective, kind, adventurous,playful, defender, creative, determined,intelligent, peaceful, talkative, curious, persevering, flexible, wise, helpful, independent, generous, hard-working, tolerant, patient, survivor, gentle 

PROCESS:

1. BODY:  toilet roll tube



2. LEGS: Cut the desired number of legs (most animals produced in the sessions were 4-legged animals) out of cardboard and attach them to the toilet roll by using an awl to pierce through the double layer of cardboard and pushing butterfly clips through to hinge the legs in place allowing for movement.
2. HEADS: use a flat piece of cardboard or Fomex cut-to-shape and place onto the front of the toilet-roll tube OR roll up a ball of newspaper, cover it in masking tape and tape it onto the front of the toilet roll.
3. TAILS: (e.g. snakes, iguanas, dolphins) Roll newspaper diagonally into long tubes, cover in masking tape to hold the shape and tape into place on the toilet roll body.



4. SKIN/ FUR:  Use paint and collage material to decorate the whole of the animal (e.g. cotton wool for the sheep's coat / wool for a horses's mane / painted stripes for an iguana's tail/ pipe-cleaners for iguana's spikes)

MATERIALS: toilet rolls, Fomex, glue, silicone, scissors, cardboard, paint, paintbrushes, palettes, bowls, marker pens, awl, butterfly clips, newspaper, masking tape, cotton wool, wool, pipe-cleaners

MEET THE FINAL ANIMALS:

A selection of Nueva Prosperina's animals and their profiles:

* My animal is a snake, he is called Yonny.  I like him because he is flexible, observant, brave and free. (top row 2nd from left) / My animal is an iguana, he is called Bryan.  I like him because he is brave, flexible and talkative. (top row 2nd from right) / My animal is a pig, he is called Ricardo.  I like him because he is lovely, beautiful, kind and gentle. (bottom row 1st from left) / My animal is a pig. He is called Jésus. I like him because he is hardworking and persevering.

ANIMAL PROFILES FROM NUEVA PROSPERINA: My animal is a sheep. He is called Kevin. I like him because he is free, adventurous, wise, calm and persevering. (left) / My animal is a pig..! And he is called Charley.  I like him because he is friendly, intelligent, gentle and kind.(right)

 

Animals from the Sergio Toral group: a couple of sheep, a couple of pigs, a dolphin and a tortoise!

Animals from the Socio Vivienda group: here the iguanas were hugely popular, and the group produced their own park-ful of the animals, plus a couple of snakes and a dolphin!

Some of the joyful moments in these animal-making Club de Arte sessions:

…playing with the giant parachute as a warm-up game...

…playing with the animals we've made…

…laughter between friends!

Happy days! 

:-)

Club de Arte 4: "Mi Muñeco"

The puppet community made by the children in Nueva Prosperina.

ONGOING THEME: Our Art Club Community

WEEK 4: My Puppet

IDEA: For each child to create a 3D puppet representing themselves. 

AIM: To continue with introductions and settling into the community of Art Club in the three neighbourhoods here in Guayaquil.

PROCESS: Jonny and I made two slightly different examples, so the children had two options to choose from to create their character:

OPTION 1: LOLLYPOP STICKS

1. BASE/ FEET: Fill a plastic bottle cap with clay and push a lollypop stick down into it.  Wrap clay around the outside of the cap too, to give more weight.  Option to paint clay once dried.
2. HEAD: Roll a ball of clay and push this onto the top of the lollypop stick. Decorate with short pieces of pipe-cleaners for hair, pushing them down into the clay or using silicone.  Option to paint the clay once it has dried.
3. FACE: sculpt lips and eyes with clay.  Once dried paint as desired.
4. ARMS: break a second lollypop stick in two and attach to the 'body' stick with silicone.  Option to stick on Fomex hands.
5. CLOTHES:  Cut flat clothes shapes from Fomex and material and stick onto the puppet's boy using silicone. Draw on any desired 'logos' or designs with marker pen.

 Puppet-making process with the kids from Sergio Toral

OPTION 2:  PLASTIC SPOONS
1. BASE/ FEET: Fill a plastic bottle cap with clay and push a spoon handle-down into it.  Wrap clay around the outside of the cap too, to give more weight, and sculpt feet or shoes as desired.  Option to paint clay once dried.
2. HEAD: Cover the scoop of the spoon with clay, making sure to join the clay along the sides so that as it dries and contracts the head doesn't fall off).  Option to paint the clay once it has dried.
3; HAIR: Decorate with colourful wool for hair, pushing the strands down into the clay or using silicone.
4. ARMS: twist a pipe cleaner around the centre of the spoon to create arms and fold in the ends to create hands.
5. FACE: sculpt lips and eyes with clay.  Once dried paint as desired.
6. CLOTHES:  Cut a long rectangle shape from cloth, with a second rectangle cut out from the centre.  Pull this over the head of the puppet and glue sides together or use wool for a belt.

MATERIALS: plastic spoons, plastic bottle caps, lolly-pop sticks, scraps of cloth, Fomex, glue, silicone, scissors, cardboard, paint, paintbrushes, palettes, bowls, marker pens, wool, pipe-cleaners

MEET THE PUPPETS:

The puppets created by the children in Nueva Prosperina.

The puppets created by the children in Sergio Toral.

     The puppets created by the children in Socio Vivienda.

This turned out to be the most fun activity so far, with every single member of Art Club getting absorbed in making their puppets, including the orienteers Ronald and Fabio and our lovely assistant and photographer Blanquita - so we can definitely say that it achieved our aim of relaxing the kids and staff more into Art Club!

Kids that finished quickly were invited to 

design their puppets a brief profile, 

(above)I'm called Mercy, I'm 12 years old, 

I live in Guayaquil

:-)

Club de Arte 3: "Our Hands - Our Values"

ONGOING THEME: Our Art Club Community

WEEK 3: Our hands - Our Values

IDEA AND AIMS: This is our third community-building activity here at CMAP's Club de Arte with JUCONI and the idea was to give the children an opportunity to reflect on what is important to them within their community of Art Club, and in adding their own decorated hands to the group's Tree of Values, to recognise themselves as a valuable part of a collaborative process. 

Instructions and examples (above): friendship, peace, hope

and the list of suggested words for the kids to use as inspiration (below):

PROCESS: 

1. We asked the kids to choose words that are important to them either from a list we had written or anything else they liked. 

2. They then drew around their hands onto paper and decorated these hands with the words they’d chosen and any images and colours representing what that word means for them. 

3. They cut out their finished hands and stuck them like leaves to the group’s ‘tree’ of “Our Values”.

TAKE A LOOK AT THE KID'S HANDS AND THE GROUP'S TREES:

The Sergio Toral Values Tree (above). The children in Sergio Toral decorated their hands with the words love, faith, family, home, friends, health, friendship, hope, peace, games, freedom, heart, education

(see their individual hands in the photo at the top of this post)

SOCIO VIVIENDA (above, individual hands, below group tree) the kids chose to decorate their hands with the words faith, family, love, home, games, friendship, education, equality, freedom, support, dreams

NUEVA PROSPERINA (above, individual hands, below details from group tree and below that the full group tree)The children choose to decorate their hands with the words family, dreams, love, faith, school, peace, friendship, hope, support, education, mum and dad

Thanks to all the kids for all the enthusiasm so far! 

:-)

Carnaval in Ambato!

This weekend was carnival-weekend all over South America, and as Millie pointed out, it is the celebration and excess preceding the 40 days of lent leading into Easter in the Christian calendar.  Ty's opinion on it is that the current fleshy-take on it is a distortion of the pre-Christian indigenous celebrations of feasting on meat (carni = carne (in Spanish) = meat).

Here in Ecuador we were told that Ambato was a good place to see some of the traditional celebrations of Ecuador's take on carnival, so Jonny, Becky, Ty and me headed to Ambato for the Fiesta de la Fruta y Flores:

 The main event: a stunning procession of floats decorated in flowers, fruits and bread

The other significant part of carnival here in Ecuador turns out to be spraying or soaking anyone and everyone with water or foam! We got swept up in the play and spray…until Jonny's i-phone getting nicked put a dampener on the evening :-(

Murals spotted a-wandering Ambato's oddly quiet streets the morning after carnival-chaos!  

Amazing paintings we spotted in a gallery in the centre of Ambato, by local artist Héctor Oswaldo Supe.

  "I walk barefoot on a rocky road 

decorating the path with my hands I leave 

images of thousands of colors you will see my footprint

and the reflection of my soul remains in history" 

Ecuadorian artist Héctor Oswaldo Supe

On the way home: trying guinea-pig for the first time (conclusion = sticky meat, hard to eat enough of the animal to feel like it's death was justified, and seeing the carcasses rotate on the spit is not that saliva-inducing).

Thanks to Jonny, Becky and Tyron for a great carnival weekend.

:-)

Club de Arte 2: "Our Space"

"I don't like violence. /

 I don't like to fight. / I don't like to be petty."

Continuing with the theme of introductions and welcome to the CMAP Club de Arte community our next activity was “Our Space”.  This was a collaborative effort with the children to set rules and boundaries for the space: what would they like in terms of behaviour and activities within the space of Club de Arte, and what would they not like?

In Nueva Prosperina's Club de Arte we like: 

to paint, to experiment with materials, to make art, to make things, to learn, to share, to laugh, to smile, to have friends, to be generous, snack-time and to play football and basketball.

In Nueva Prosperina's Club de Arte we don’t like: 

to fight, to be petty, to use bad words, to tease one another, violence.

Having decided on their rules, the kids wrote their phrases onto colourful Fomex, decorated them and stuck them to a huge sheet:

Based on what the children from the three different groups shared and on what our Art Club team believe is best for the group Jonny and I created these two sheets explaining the structure of Art Club and its rules, what I learned with Kids Company to call a working alliance:

Art Club is a space for girls and boys from 7 to 13 years old to create, draw, paint, learn, play and enjoy themselves :-) / Structure of the session: * Welcome * Relaxation game * Art activity * Photos of work * Clean-up * Snack * Goodbye (left)

To feel good in Art Club we all have to: respect one another, communicate,  share,  behave well,  listen, not fight, not use bad words, not shout, not interrupt, not to annoy one another, not to bully one another (right)  

And the idea of all this?  

To create a happy and safe Art Club space where we can do lots of making, 

and where we can do more of this…

…and this..!

!! 

:-)

Club de Arte 2014 launch: "Our Puzzle"

Wow, how time has flown! After arriving here in Guayaquil back at the end of January and after a fascinating month of inductions, planning and getting to know my new colleagues here at JUCONI we are already now into our third week of CMAP's Club de Arte 2014. And it´s brilliant – energetic, colourful, messy, hot, definitely fun, plus the kids are great!

It happens that my arrival at JUCONI has coincided with a lot of change at the organisation; there has been internal restructuring and also many families have graduated from the program while new families have been invited to join. The impact of all this change for Club de Arte is that we now part of JUCONI´s Community Team and most importantly that two of the three groups Tracey and Jonny worked with last year have come to an end and two new groups are now beginning.

All three of the neighbourhoods Club de Arte is now working in are in the north of Guayaquil, and here’s a brief introduction to each group:

1. Nueva Prosperina. 

This is the one group which continues on from last year, on Thursday afternoons. This was the first group that we worked with this year and it was a great introduciton for me to see how warmly the kids greeted Jonny, flinging themselves at him with huge hugs! We´re off to a great start, with a very large group of 20+ in each session so far and with half of the kids being known to JUCONI and the others new it’s been really important to work with group bonding. As well as all our initial art club activities revolving round introductions and community our supporting orienteer Ronald came up with a good warm-up exercise where each child introduced themselves to another they had never met before, shaking hands and sharing their names.

2. Socio Vivienda 2

The first of our completely new groups, we’ll be working with the kids in Socio Vivienda 2 on Monday afternoons. This is a very new neighbourhood which has been built to rehouse many families from the south who were living in high-risk conditions along or over the edge of the estuary. Some of the kids in this group used to attend Club de Arte in the south in Isla Trinitaria, others are known to JUCONI because of being relatives of our collaborating photographer Blanca and others are just starting out on their JUCONI journey.

3. Sergio Toral

Our second new group, run on Wednesday afternoons, is so far full of children who are completely new to JUCONI. From the first session we noticed a strong group identity, when the kids asked for group photos (on that day it was an all-boy group, now we’ve had a few girls join us too).

Session 1 "Our Puzzle" instructions and facilitator examples

1st Club de Arte Activity: “Our Puzzle”

With it being the start of a new Club de Arte year, with plenty of new kids and with me as a new CMAP facilitator, our focus in all the activities we've been planning for these initial weeks has been introducing everyone to one another and welcoming everyone to the Club de Arte community.

We started each group off with “Our Puzzle”, where each child created a large puzzle piece decorated with their name, age and things they liked. 

This served both as an opportunity to learn one another’s names and personalities, and also in the process of joining it together to reflect on the symbolism of the puzzle as representing our community of Club de Arte.

It's great to have finally met all three groups.

And I owe a big huge thanks to all my new colleagues at JUCONI for the great welcome to the team over these last weeks, which has made this start to the year so smooth and happy. Particular thanks to the Club de Arte team: photographer Blanca, support orienter Ronald and most especially, CMAP veteran and my partner for the year, Jonny whose thorough induction has been invaluable!

 :-)