Dear You Art Project

Mail Art + Pen Friends = Dear You Art Project

Estonia

Patterns from Mooste's Preschool

2016, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Dear You Workshop Leader, Estonia, Finland, Pre-SchoolArlene TuckerComment

It's a great idea and kids are natural pattern creators. One thing confused them though- namely magnifying classes, I should have left these out and just focused on patterns we can see with our eyes. Otherwise it is too much information packed in 1 project: patterns and magnification and ones skin and masks. Otherwise kids really loved their masks and did not want to send them away, but when i reminded them that they get masks in return from other kids in Finland they agreed.

So cant wait untilyour masks arrive.

Best greets,
Evelyn

Evelyn Müürsepp and her 5-7 year old artists in Mooste Preschool in Mooste, Estonia are making and sharing art with Kristina Laine and her 4-5 year old artists at Kalinka Päiväkoti in Helsinki, Finland.

Making shapes that move

2016, 4 years old, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Dear You Workshop Leader, Estonia, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

After morning circle we looked at the works from our Helsinki friends, trying to understand what devices are depicted, how they move and what drives them. The kids got all excited to do their own vehicles. Everyone got a kit of 3 geometric shapes. We looked at them, named them and explored how can a rectangle be turned into a square, diamond into triangles and oval into half circles. The rule was that they can cut these shapes if they want (but only once and by halving them) and they can trade the shapes with their friends and add afterwards details with pens. Most of the kids started excitingly to work.

Markus: tank of Siim, it protects people from the baddies
Lauri: truck what carries miraculous sun sand
Ats: snowplough
Laas: one wheel train. for cat, ferret, mouse and birdies...
Matthias: horse pulls kings car
Mattias: tank what collects firewood for soldiers
Mona: crystal palace and princess bringing crystals
Eliise: estonian train, takes people from one place to another
Lotte-lisandra: flying car travelling to põlva (nearby town), my mummy waving to me because im going to buy her a bracelet
Henri: grandma and grandpa are taking post to avery usual castle
Ode: robot-butterfly is flying from blossom to blossom
Kar-kaarel: carbage truck what carries chocolate
Siim: cumputer tank what can be upgraded

best greetings,
evelyn

Evelyn Müürsepp and her 4-5 year old artists in Mooste Preschool in Mooste, Estonia are making and sharing art with Kristina Laine and her 4-5 year old artists at Kalinka Päiväkoti in Helsinki, Finland.

Having fun on Kadripäev and Mardipäeav!

2016, 2nd Grade, 8 years olds, Dear You Art Workshops, Estonia, Austria, HolidaysArlene TuckerComment

The January Project was fun. In Estonia we have the days "Kadripäev" and "Mardipäeav" where we make masks. The children wanted to immediately start to draw. They were looking for patterns on their skin and clothes. Fortunately, the children were wearing very colorful
clothing and the masks are completed soon. It was a great idea.

Aili Vassil


The 8 year old artists from Mooste Põhikool in Mooste, Estonia are making and exchanging art with the 8 years from Evangelischen Volksschule am Karlsplatz in Vienna, Austria.

Environment Consciousness Week in our thoughts

2015, 4 years old, 5 years old, Collective Art, Dear You Art Workshops, EstoniaArlene TuckerComment

As there was Environment Consciousness Week right before the Atmosphere project, children drew air and land, polluted air and clean air. After taping all works together kids did not feel like adding anything.

So long,  enjoy holidays and time!

Best,
Evelyn

Evelyn Müürsepp and her 4-5 year old artists in Mooste Preschool in Mooste, Estonia are making and sharing art with Kristina Laine and her 4-5 year old artists at Kalinka Päiväkoti in Helsinki, Finland.

Looking towards the horizon in Estonia

2015, 4 years old, 5 years old, Collective Art, Dear You Art Workshops, Estonia, GermanyArlene TuckerComment

Töös osalesid lapsed vanuses 4-5 aastat: 6 poissi. Tööprotsess neile meeldis. Eriti see, et sai valida mitmesuguste pliiatsijoonte vahel, millega pind täita. Vaatasime rühmaaknast välja ja leidsime oma silmapiiri - taevas ja maa. Sellest tulenevalt ka värvid sinine ja roheline. Laste jaoks oli põnev koht, et piltidest kokku tekkis justkui pikk maastik orgude ja kõrgndikega - meie Lõuna-Eesti maastik.

Ja meile õpetajatele, mulle ja Lissile, meeldib lastega kunsti teha ja seda protsessi kõrvalt nautida.

Aitäh meie igapäevaelu rikastamise eest!

Inge

***

Most of kids from our pre-school have viruses, therefore only half of the group is together. 6 boys, aged 4-5 years participated at the project. They loved the process. Specially, that they could choose between different pencil lines with what to fill the surface. We looked out from window and found our horizon- sky and earth. From there the colours: blue and green. It was also interesting for kids that pictures together made long spanning landscape, with valleys and heights- our Southern Estonian landscape. 

And for teachers, to me and Lissi, we love making arts with children and enjoy the process. 

Thank you for enriching our everyday life!

Inge

Thanks to Evelyn Müürsepp for the English translation!

Kalinka artists share and care : )

2015, 4 years old, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Dear You Workshop Leader, Estonia, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

In the last workshop the Siilit group from Kalinka Päiväkoti in Helsinki, Finland made a collective image about their environment. This time we used very simple materials: pencil, eraser and white sheets of paper.

I think they are always eager about the workshops. During the workshop, kids are usually divided into two groups because some speak only Russian and some only Finnish. I think it would be nice to have a Skype call, so that the kids could see who they are sending their works to. Of course, they realize this, but I think it would be nice to see each other too.

The children liked a lot the received mail from their Dear You friends in Mooste, Estonia. I showed them the works of Mooste Preschool's kids.

Kristina Laine

Kristina Laine and her 4-5 year old artists at Kalinka Päiväkoti in Helsinki, Finland are making and sharing art with Evelyn Müürsepp and her 4-5 year old artists in Mooste Preschool in Mooste, Estonia.

Imagining our friends

2015, 5 years old, 4 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Dear You Workshop Leader, Estonia, Finland, Pre-SchoolArlene TuckerComment

I asked to try to imagine a friend. Imaginative friend could be a person or an animal. The materials for the workshop were old magazines, paper, crayons and glue. Since my son is in the same group, almost all kids new me already so they were not shy and asked me many questions. Some kids needed more guidance than others. After everyone was done with their work I placed all the imaginative friend images on the floor and invited all the kids to come and see their work together. I told them that these images will be sent to another group which, by the way, has the same name: Siilit.

All best,
Kristina Laine

Kristina Laine and her 4-5 year old artists at Kalinka Päiväkoti in Helsinki, Finland are making and sharing art with Evelyn Müürsepp and her 4-5 year old artists in Mooste Preschool in Mooste, Estonia.

Koomiks

5 years old, 2015, Dear You Art WorkshopsArlene TuckerComment

Evelyn Müürsepp, artist and workshop leader, gives great tips on how to make a successful comic workshop.  It seems that her group of 5 year old in Estonia are natural comic artists.  I'm sure their friends in Berlin will enjoy reading their stories!

Evelyn said,

It was a really good experience and I loved seeing how intuitively kids grabbed the idea and started producing their own stories :-)

I did now know where to start- as I have always struggled myself with visual storytelling- somehow I end up complicating things to fast. This time I just prepared few things and then kids got it from the air.

Things like:
- got couple of 3-4 image comic strip examples from internet (with and without text)
Then asked kids to tell what do they see. Everyone told it their way and then i told the version what was written on "bubbles"- It gave them example that there are many ways to interpret visual story...

- got some comic books for viewing (Just when waiting for start and afterwards when some got their work done earlier they were looking these)

-  printed out some ready made comic "boxes"- just in case

- prepared some themes and draw them some examples, themes like: "my expressions", "things I like to do", "my favourite foods", "my dear ones..." Themes seemed to be good just to have (mostly for teachers who were helping to give instructions for youngest ones). 5 year olds started immediately making their own, pretty complicated 3-6 image stories. It was interesting to see how kids who do not read yet follow the story line. It is not from left to right, but seemed to be that starting image was in center and then story was kind of evolving around that image- it never followed the same path, but went one way in the beginning and for next round just image sequence switched and story could go on like that forever- ie story wasn't linear, it was spiraling :-)

I do not know about others, but for me it was great lesson and I really enjoyed it, so seemed the children and teachers (they were actually also surprised how well kids got the idea and how creatively they interpreted it)

From palm trees and rice friends in India to you!

2015, 5th Grade, Dear You Art Workshops, IndiaArlene TuckerComment

Dear Mooste friends,

It was very hot and sunny today at Arivu school. The summer holidays are already starting here as you are entering spring.

Around Arivu school there are some rice fields and many of your friends chose to see them through the viewfinder. There are also palm trees and other types of trees as you can see in the artworks. The playing area of the school as well as the school buildings have also found their way to the artworks. 

Before going for holidays, they will make an art exhibition of your February artworks. They are all looking forward to see them and know you all.

Greetings from your Indian friends!

Berliners find amazing color combinations!

2015, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Estonia, GermanyArlene TuckerComment

Lusine and her 5 year old artists from Berlin had a great time with their Dear You March project! I am sure Evelyn and her artists in Mooste, Estonia will appreciate their watercolor views.  

We split the project into two. First the kids made and used their viewfinders to fix images, colors and different combinations. It was interesting to observe that later on when they were asked to put their creativity onto paper, they knew exactly what and how they wanted to paint. In between, they were encouraged to use the view finders again, which they applied from different distances involving other kids to hold the painting or to look through their view finders.

We had a lot of fun and discovered many new things around us.

All the best,
Lusine and Felixers

Candy Talk and Candy Art in Estonia

2014, Estonia, Dear You Art WorkshopsArlene TuckerComment

Evelyn Müürsepp, the Dear You Workshop Leader in Estonia, shares a bit about their artistic approach to October's project.

Evelyn said, "We made candy pouches, drew candies and tasted some candies.  From the discussion we had it came out that candies are not such a special thing- kids can have them when they want and refuse them when they do not want them.  Too much candy is not good.  We fantasized about different possible and impossible candies when making our project.  We used scrap paper and leftovers to try to have the same principle (re-use, recycle) also in the future projects."

The candies will soon be posted to their friends in Berlin at Felix and Friends School.


Dear You Summer Visits to Estonia and USA

School visits, Dear You Art Workshops, Estonia, USAArlene TuckerComment

This summer was extra great because I got to visit two of the Dear You participating schools and even got to create with the artists. The first visit was to Lasteaed Illikuku in Ahja, Estonia and the second was at Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, USA.

Thank you for making my summer extra goood :)