Let's Get Messy!

No matter how much I try to teach my students to paint and mix with a brush, they find it easier to "not waste a brush" by just using their fingers (all of this goes through their little minds as they admire the appearance of a clean brush). The kids (and adults) here in Peru are very conscious of not wasting any little bit of anything, which includes paints and paper. They keep and save things I would normally consider scraps and tiny bits of paint that cannot be re-used. During one of my art classes, my student Ketty pulls out a small plastic bag with pink scraps of paper, a few old pink stickers, and other colorful papers that she saves for herself. Nothing in that bag is something I would've kept at her age, even a Hanna Montana or Barbi T-shirt tag that she probably found down the road somewhere. Everything I clean-up and claim as trash during clean-up time, she bats her cute little eyes and begs to keep. "Ya pe, regalame, regalame por favor." (Come on, give it to me, give it to me please.) But it's trash! It just goes to show the little things that are valued here, such as the idea of ownership towards something that's been given directly to them and you know they will probably keep for life. This is why I always make sure to bring them stickers or a little something for the end of the class if they behave, share, and treat the art supplies well. If they can take a little souvenir home after class, they become so happy :) And I love seeing their smiling faces and hearing all the "Yupiiis!" 

These kids are from Zone S, one of the poorer Huaycan zones because they are more isolated in distance to the main area of the town below.   A combi bus takes me up as far as it can go, and the rest is up for me to hike. With my book bag full of art supplies and water bottle in hand, I get my exercise for the week on Monday mornings just for these kids. Their eagerness and delight for art class is the motivation that keeps me going up that steep hill.

So far, one of my favorite days with them has been the finger painting (well, they turned it into finger painting) on photo paper, which was white, but gradually got darker under sun exposure. MAGIC PAPER! is what they called it. The intensity of the paints contrasted against the dark background which made these paintings pop. Some of them abstract so I took the opportunity to talk about Pollock and other abstract styles (while showing them examples from The ART Book).