Dear You Art Project

Mail Art + Pen Friends = Dear You Art Project

October 2014

Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are a win!

2nd Grade, 2014, United Kingdom, USAArlene TuckerComment

Kathleen Finan, the art teacher at Amy Parks Heath Elementary School in Heath, Texas has been making Artist Trading Cards (ATC) with her artists.  They have just sent these to their Dear You friends in Nottingham, UK!  

Kathleen wrote, "The students wrote holiday greetings on the back of these ATC scratchboards.  I bought these glitter scratchboards for the holidays, sometimes I make them with the kids.  The candy bags had 3 ATCs in them telling their favorite holidays when candy is given."

What a treat!  Not only did the artists make Candy Bags for the October project, but also ATCs!

Go ahead and try this out with your artists :)

Mice wonder, "Candy can be black?!"

2014, Vietnam, 5 years old, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

Greetings once again from our Finnish Vietnamese group, Tigers and Mice enjoyed last week to the fullest knowing that Halloween was around the corner and they had a terrifying candy bag full of their favorite sweets. Here in Hanoi, we decorated our bags with different shapes and used our imagination and some music to decorate the candy bags, they turned out scary and colorful at the same time! 

Last Friday was our international show and tell circle, we shared candies, jellies, lollipops, marshmallows, and even pancakes and ice cream. We even had a girl that loved flowers so much that thought it would be nice to have them in her candy bag. 

The surprise came when our dear Tiger friends showed us a small piece of black candy... 
- What's that?? Chocolate? no wait chocolate is usually brown...
- Hahahaha, no its something we call liquorish.
- Is it black candy? Ewwwww!

Apparently some colors are not meant for candy if you ask our little mice! Black is definitely one of them... Hopefully they get to taste that Finnish delicatessen one day! 

See you next month Dear you Community and have a nice autumn were ever you are!

Xin chao!

Toti Álvarez

Mmm... Margot and other Czech sweets!

4th Grade, Czech Republic, Dear You Art Workshops, 2014Arlene TuckerComment

Our second meeting with students  from Central Point International Elementary School in Prague, Czech Republic was the most difficult workshop we have had together so far. I started the lesson by showing short examples from the history of still lifes to the students; the works from Rembrandt, Picasso, Warhol,etc. I explained what a still life is and how the authors were trying to get closer to depicting the reality by using all their senses.

Afterwards, I put  candy in the middle of the working table and told the students that instead of eating the candy we will use them as tools [that is why I told them at the beginning that this is going to be the most difficult workshop so far]. We first drew the packages of all the sweets on look through paper and than we used the actual candy to „paint with them the smell“ of the different kinds of Candy we have in the Czech Republic. So hopefully you will smell the Margot (famous Czech candy) in Finland soon.

It was a really great afternoon and the concept of our class also inspired other teachers from Central Point School.  In the end, the students looked really amazed what they were able to create and I enjoyed both the lesson and the results of their work.  

- Rudolf Samohejl

 

Belgian Chocolate for Halloween sounds good to me :)

Belgium, Pre-School, USA, 2014Arlene TuckerComment

Naomi Kite, the Pre K teacher at The International School of Antwerp, and her artists have created beautiful Candy Bags for Halloween!  

Naomi said, "They chose lots of lollipops with fantastical figures on them (I think these might be imagined lollipops, no one could exactly tell me if you could buy these in a store) and Belgian chocolates of many varieties. : )"

They will share these with their friends at Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, USA.

Sweet Times at Helsinki's English School

4th Grade, 2014, Czech Republic, Dear You Art Workshops, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

Have you ever eaten a small black square that tastes like salt and medicine? Well, it's called Salmiakki and it's considered quite a treat here in Finland.

This time in our Dear You workshop we shared delicious tastes and sweet sights as we made candy arc pop-up cards for our friends in Prague.

We drew some candy and glued our art on our pop up card arcs. Then we described in writing what our pictured candy tastes like. Some of our candies were real while others were make believe. They all looked pretty delicious to me!

Everyone can enjoy these sweets, even the ones who are missing a sweet tooth. I hope they munch these sweets up with their eyes back in Prague!

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

Randlevskolen working on "Sweets for you"

2014, 5th Grade, 4th Grade, DenmarkArlene TuckerComment

Tatjana Knudsen and her 4th & 5th grade artists are full of energy after their Efterårsferie holiday! 

"They were very creative and concentrated while they were working on their candy bags. This project lead us to a wonderful talk about the words "candy", which is American and the word "sweets", which is English. I think that all my students now know the difference between the two words.

THIS really is a wonderful way to mix art and language learning."

- Tatjana Knudsen

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.


Creative Sensing Across the Baltic Sea

Finland, Dear You Art Workshops, 2014Arlene Tucker1 Comment

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

Sewing, Symmetry and Candy!

2014, Dear You Art Workshops, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

The Monkeys and I talked about symmetry and what it means to draw a still life. We found symmetry in the leaves they picked up and we also found symmetry in our bodies. We put the idea of what is symmetrical to use when we created our candy bags!  The compositions The Monkeys made when putting their candy together was great too!

We didn't do any tasting in class, but it was fun to talk about flavors and more importantly, why and on what occasions we give and eat candy.  Halloween is coming up and so this was a fun step towards getting ready for the holiday!  It was mentioned that we also give and eat candy on Easter. We'll have to wait a few more months for that one :)

The Monkeys had great questions for their friends in Greenland.

Nikke asked, "What kind of candy do they have in Greenland?
Minea asked, "Do they like our drawings?"
Lotta asked, "Have they eaten our candy before?"

Thanks Monkeys!
- Arlene Tucker