Naturally and artistically!

From natural materials picking to using microscope convertor, our children became investigators zooming into this little gadget to look closer into the plants in our environment.

Following that, they did mark making on the clay using tools such as sticks and twigs to create lines similar to the ones on the leaves. This encouraged them to transfer their observation onto pre-cut paper before coloring using different mediums such as crayons and colour pencils.

Our final episode of this project was drawing a spiral and cutting along the line to create beautiful mobiles for our friends in Mexico!

Nurul'Ain, N2B teacher, and her 3 and 4 year old artists from EtonHouse Bilingual Pre-School in Singapore are making and sharing art with Marianna Diaz and her 4 year old artists in Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico. 

Creative Sensing Across the Baltic Sea

Silence. Not a sound anywhere... except ... Clink! "The sound of keys hitting metal." Wroooom "The sound of the printer working." Fifteen different sounds found in silence.

This time during the Dear You Art Workshop Meilahti's eighth graders focused on their physical senses: touch, vision, smell, taste and hearing. We started off our second workshop with the small meditation on sound. This meditation showed us that silence wasn't that silent at all. Do we take all our body's sensory data as self granted?

We pondered what senses we mostly use when getting around in our day to day lives. Do we just use our eyes or do we open up all our senses to be here now?

Since we don't have the chance to visit our new Danish friends right away, we decided to take a different approach. We drew on top of the printed out photos from Denmark, sensing the environment and artwork they've made through our imagination and our own creative process. We represented our sensory feelings through the use of form, color and lines.

After much creating we made a video message to Denmark, but alas, the camera didn't record. But fortunately we still have these beautiful creative pieces that truly speak for themselves. And so, we'll let the art do the talking on our behalf in Denmark!

- Nooralotta Ikonen
http://laiskia.blogspot.fi

Meilahden Yläasteen School in Helsinki kicks off their first project!

The eighth graders of Meilahti School in Helsinki, Finland took part in the first Dear You workshop of this fall. We explored our surroundings through Environmental Art. In the upcoming sessions we're going to explore our inner environments with mindful art and top it all with explorations and meetings through performance.

During the first workshop we took our art gear to the park next to the school. We talked about how forms and colors affect the message and harmony of the art work. We took inspiration from Robert Smithson's Jetty Spiral and Kaija Kiuru's Hahmotelmia. Why had Smithson planned his work in a spiral form? Why had Kiuru chosen red strands for her work instead of green?

Most of the participants worked in teams. Every artist took the environment into account while planning and making their pieces.It was wonderful to witness the flow of ideas and how the artists came into a mutual understanding to ripen the ideas into fruition in the short time we had to execute our art work.

Next time we'll start working based on the art we receive from our new friends in Denmark. Can't wait what the wonderful artist of Meilahti school think of next!

- Nooralotta Ikonen
http://laiskia.blogspot.fi
Dear You Workshop Leader