Dear You Art Project

Mail Art + Pen Friends = Dear You Art Project

Vietnam

The Tigers are great artists and friends!

2015, Dear You Art Workshops, Dear You Workshop Leader, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

The Tigers have taken the Imagine Me project to a new level!  They were mixing reality and imaginary worlds together making a giant playground for all of us to be together in.

It was great talking with them about their puppets!

K's puppet is Amos.  Amos is a good friend because "he helps me when I am resting."
Ai's puppet is Veeti who "likes to play Viking and Her Factory with."
P's puppet is named Kasper.  "He likes to go on the boat and like trash trucks!"
V says her puppet Akseli likes to fly, play, and cars.
C's puppet is called Mommy <3.

These playful bunch of Imagine Me puppets are in the air to our new friends at Just Kids school in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Thanks for the great afternoon!

Xarlene

Comic Strips from the Tigers

2015, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

The Tigers impressed me so much not only with their comic strips, but how they can clearly show emotions in their drawn characters!  We first made some character studies from one of the characters in their character.  For example, since Paavo was the main character in his comic he decided to do a character study of himself.  He drew what he looks like happy, sad, nervous, and even drew himself as if he was going to explode from an oversupply of energy!

Everybody did a wonderful job! The Mice in Vietnam will enjoy reading these during their summer holiday too!

The Tigers shed light with their artwork

2015, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

These profile self-portraits are like a mirror image of the artist!  The Tigers did a wonderful job with their Light Works and had fun experimenting with this new technique.

Wow! Aleksi did a spot on job recreating his hair!  His self-portrait had equally spiky and spunky hair as in real life.  Nachu said she was trying to draw her skin color.  Jonatan had a wonderful revelation when he put the yellow gel over the blue picture.  He realized that blue + yellow = green.  I'm happy that everybody had fun :).

Now for our Mice, we wonder what time does the sun set in Vietnam?  Sending light to our friends in Hanoi!

Our colorful view!

2015, 5 years old, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

The Tigers and I started our session by making a viewfinder with our hands and seeing what is around us.  We saw the trees outside the window, we saw the view to the downstairs where the Dolphins and Lions are, we saw the hearts on the windows and all the beautiful artwork hanging from the ceiling!  Now have a look at how our views turned into beautiful watercolor paintings : )

We our curious how our views are the same and different from The Mice in Vietnam!

With love,
Arlene & The Tigers from Espoo, Finland

Pop Up Tigers and Pop Up Season's Greetings!

2014, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

Once The Tigers mastered the art of making a pop up box everything became possible! Nachu was experimenting with writing her name in cursive. Jonatan made a pop up reindeer. Sreya said she wanted to give the sun to her friends in Vietnam.  That's so thoughtful considering Finland could really use some right about now :).  Ida went beyond the twofold card and made a pop up book! 

The Tigers will mail these warm wishes to the Mice in Vietnam.  Hyvää Joulua and Happy New Year!

Painting has no boundaries

5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

First we were all surprised, interested, curious and sometimes even scared of the paintings we saw: M. C. Escher, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and other surrealist painters, which made us think a little bit and also realize that painting has no boundaries. 

Then, we started painting to Jun Miyake's "Lillies of the Valley". The storm, No teacher, Windy day, The tree, Flowers, Birds of Vietnam or the galaxy are some of the paintings we created. Take a look and you will find much more. 

All the best from Hanoi,
The Little Mice

The Little Mice are exchanging with the Tigers in Espoo, Finland.  Check out what The Tigers did for their Musical Paintings here!

The Musical Tigers get inspired by Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky

2014, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

Art is another form of self expression and today the Tigers taught me a lot about that!  We started the session by looking at artists such as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.  These two great artists were very much inspired by music. We talked about the kinds of sounds and music we started to hear when we looked at their paintings. 

Then we listened to some music and hopped along to it to see visually and physically how the rhythm is.  We jumped when the tune was high and crept closer to the floor when it was low.  After we felt comfortable with the music we shimmied to our drawing tables and started painting away to Schneider TM's song called "Frogtoise" and to Nightmares On Wax song, "Les Nuits".  Can you hear the difference through the brushstrokes?

We can't wait to hear what songs our friends in Vietnam created to!

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

The Tigers are Sweet!

Dear You Art Workshops, 2014, Vietnam, FinlandArlene TuckerComment

Not only are the Tigers sweet, but they have a sweet tooth and sweet sense of humor!  It was fun talking with them about what kind of candy they like and when they give candy to their friends and families.  Aleksi likes Salmiakki like a good Finn!  

I'm not too sure if their friends in Vietnam can even imagine what Salmiakki tastes like!  Toti, that's going to be an interesting challenge for you to explain :).

This topic started some great stories on the candy bags they sewed together.  For example, Vilma said, "I drew raining lollipops!" Ida and many of the other Tigers drew ice cream and cookies for their friends.  Using autumn leaves the Tigers picked up from the forest adds a beautiful touch to their artwork too!

This was the first time The Tigers practiced writing their new friend's names on their bag.  I'm sure everybody is excited for their next meeting on Skype!

I know I am!
- Arlene Tucker


A Letter from Hanoi

Vietnam, Finland, Dear You Art WorkshopsArlene TuckerComment

Hello all, 

Last Friday was a very exciting day both here at Just Kids in Hanoi and at Your School in Espoo. After a couple of weeks of working on their artwork, the "Little Mice" had the chance to meet their new friends in Finland and show them their Self Portrait Puppets. They all talked about themselves, their names, age and where they live. Some were a bit shy at the beginning, but, in the end, they all had fun and got a chance to show their artwork.

Many also explained about their favorite things such as, swimming, ice-cream, ninjas, the color pink, blonde hair and even their own countries which they love so dearly. It was a great surprise to see the kids find out that they are not so different after all. They all like similar things. And despite the distance, they where able to spend Friday afternoon together in a fun "show and tell" circle.

We are looking forward to start our next project and to meet "The Tigers" again. We leave you here some of their artwork so you can get to know our artists better.

All the best from Hanoi,

Toti

The Tigers are Rrrrready for their Ipevo Skype session with Just Kids in Hanoi!

Finland, Dear You Art Workshops, VietnamArlene TuckerComment

I learned so much about the Tigers today!  I learned that Aleksi likes to play chess because he drew a chess piece on his self-portrait puppet.  I also learned that Sofi loves the color purple because she gave herself a purple dress.  Now their new friends in Hanoi, Vietnam will also get to know them!

Before we got ourselves covered with glue and markers I first showed them different portraits of artists such as Frida Kahlo and Pablo Picasso.  This got our mind in the frame of choosing what we would like to tell our new friends about ourselves.

Nachu said, "This puppet is the real me and not the real me!"  

On Friday they will have their first Dear You Skype session using the Ipevo document camera and conference station.  Exciting!