In today's art classroom

As an art trainer, I get numerous opportunities to visit various kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. I teach visual arts, and I provide my children with learning experiences – primarily to explore, to experiment, to create, to destroy, to reflect and conclude. It is a fun job, but a little part of me dies every single time. Why?

“I don’t know how to do. I scared wrong”. Or “I don’t want to do, later my hands dirty”.

For the 22 years in my life, I have never been to the toilet as often as some of these kids have, in one lesson. I am not kidding. I have spent more time responding (more like rejecting) to requests for them to go to the toilet to wash their hands, than actually creating something in class.

The disgust on their face when a little bit of paint gets onto their fingers. The frustration they feel when things get stuck to their sticky fingers while gluing their artwork. Worst, when they make an irreversible mistake on their work. The devastating look on their face makes me wonder at times, if they see me as the devil who is out to ruin their lives. However, I do get my fair share of blames from ‘The blame game’ – “teacher I told you I cannot do it, you ask me to try. See what happens. Now it is ruined”.

True enough, I did ask them to try, but what I expected in the end of a failed attempt was for them to figure a way out, or experiment to see if another method works, but they give up. They simply give up.

It puzzles me to know that these beautiful intellectual beings are afraid to try something new, or try something different. They are just… Afraid.

It irks me even more to know that the only texture they are willing to touch or lay their finger on, is the screen of their phone or Ipad.What a waste.

Don’t get me wrong. Not every child is like that, and I did not say that it is wrong to be a fastest fingers first. You can be a genius with technology, but your ziggity zag fingers that got your through Temple Run, will not get you through a Visual Arts lesson, especially when you’re supposed to create with your hands - on paper, on batik, with wires, clay, paint, etc.

I am not the ‘cleanest dish in the sink’ either; I am not the finest example in the early childhood or education industry, so I will not cite famous quotations from great philosophers on what is good or bad for kids. However, what I do know is that if I were to ever take care of kids, or be blessed with kids of my own, I will make sure that these kids get to feel what it is like to have gooey, sticky, messy, muddy, or to what others deem as “gross” things on their hands, feet, body, and heck even their faces.

There will be days where they will scavenge for their little toy soldiers that are trapped in huge ice blocks, and there will be days were they will pretend to have crime scenes and chalk silhouettes outside. They will have coloured bomb baths, after wriggling their feet in mud puddles, or after running across oobleck. They will read books about plants, and they might even pick up gardening after that. They’ll meet insects that help their plants, and they’ll keep pet caterpillars and butterflies. They’ll have puppet shows on rainy days with their felt and paper mache-made puppets, or they could play with shadows and lights when there is a storm.

They will explore, experiment, present, create and destroy. Most importantly, they will have fun.

Technology? Oh they will get to go on the web. That is, when they are fine tuning their ‘blueprints’ so that we can make cardboard go-karts to race round the park.

Now who’s with me?

Skinamarinky dinky dink, skinamarinky doo...

While the Muslims are out celebrating Hari Raya...


While some are drooling over Korean pop stars...


While others are praying for those who lost their loved ones on September 11...


While some are celebrating that fact that the church did not burn the Quran...


While the teens are partying their night away...


While my mum is creating 2000 batik pieces...


Kethlyn (me) turned her portrait into a sugar skull

PS: The title had nothing to do with this post. But Mary Poppins is awesome:)

Box Of Nonsense

I was side by side Steve Irwin (the all time best Crocodile hunter ever), crouching behind a bush when all of a sudden, a HUGE mighty leopard sprung from a tree nearby, leaping onto me. I squeezed my eyes shut, for fear of looking at the beast in its eyes. I then kicked and punched, pushing every unfamiliar contact on my body.


Suddenly, everything laid still. there was no movement. Was the beast dead? Couldn't be, unless I was as strong as Xena the warrior Princess.


I had to know what happened. I used every strength I had, and heaved myself upwards, opening my eyes, ready to fight off the beast again, if it were to attack.


To embarrassment, there I was, in the middle of my room, with my quilt still on me, hair in a mess, in a fighting Taekwando stance. And there my mum was, on my bed, looking at me with the most puzzled face ever.


Both she and I couldn't help but burst out laughing at the stupidity and awkwardness.


Just as I was about to plop back onto the floor (She sleeps with me, on my bed, so I take the floor), my mum shoves a box she proudly names: Her "Box Of Nonsense. But there's still Box 2 and Box 3". I stare sleepily, but in amazement as I took everything out of the box. There were buttons, papier mache, clips, foam, coloured paper, ribbons, googly eyes, scissors, pom poms, things that I didn't see before, nor heard before.

Just as I was about to fall back to sleep, she whipped out a long piece of black pipe cleaner. She wound and twined, and just as I was about to shut my eyes, she threw something hairy at my face.


I flicked it off of my face and looked to see what it was. It was a tarantula! Not a real one, but some creature that she made from her "Box Of Nonsense", with simply a piece of pipe cleaner and googly eyes. And made within a few minutes!


And it almost looks like the real one! Okay, a little exaggerated, but see if for yourself.


















You must be wondering why my quilt looks so "naked". Well, I took the quilt cover off, because my dog loves sleeping on it, and my quilt always runs in the cover, having it mispositioned all over the place. And so i took it off, and have been sleeping like that ever since.



Anyway, when I asked my mum how she thought of the spider, and how to make it, all she said was "I don't know, it just popped into my head!"


Hahaha.




Do your parents, at least one, behave like how my mum does?






By the way, because of the White Tiger Attack at the zoo, my job's postponed till Wednesday!! :(

ANIMAL ABUSE

Not for Animal Lovers



The last time I blogged about Animal Abuse was back in February, where I lay the truth about where China got their fur from, and how they got it.

Click Here to read it.


That came as a huge shock to me as I thought that the artificial fur was usually from cotton or other materials.

But even if these animals were used, what disgusted me was how they killed the animals to retrieve the fur.

I am aware that killing them by the knife could damage the fur, and I am also aware that the drug used to put animals to sleep is rather expensive. But I still think that there are other ways other than hammering them against to kill them.


This scenario is just one of the many animal Abuse that is ongoing around the world. The other Animal Abuse is Seal Hunting.















Seal Hunting is carried out in 5 countries , with Canada being the hot spot where most of the world's seal hunting takes place.

Seals are hunted for their fur, blubber and their meat, by sealers who clubs the seals with a baseball bat-like instruments. Just like China, the sealers treat the seals with so much cruelty that they kick and skin the seals while conscious or alive.

It is known that sealers kill pubs; baby seals who are not more than three months old.


If that is not cruel enough, then read on...


The next topic that I am going to talk about is, of how an artist portrayed his "art piece" in a gallery.


The Artist goes by the name of Guillermo Vargas aka Habacuc.


This man, who considers himself as an Artist, had done up an Art piece in 2007 which involved a starving of a dog named Nativity.

The dog was taken from the streets, then was chained up. He also withheld water and food from the dog. The dog was tied not more than a feet a away from a wall display constructed of dog food, where it was there till its last throes of death.

The Artist and visitors watched on as the dog suffered in agony. The visitors were told not to feed the dog. Boy, if I were there, I would've cut the chains and set the dog free!


To make matters worst, "the Visual Arts Biennial of Central America decided that the 'installation' WAS actually art, so Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the Biennial of 2008."







Bunch of idiots, I do hope they get their retribution.



To read more about Seal Hunting and the organization that is helping in the protest against it, Click Here.


If you're really keen on ending the horrendous act carried out by habacuc, then please sign the petition!


Click Here.


For more info on Habacuc,Click Here.

Master pieces

I remember how much I dread going to art class since Sec 1. Don't get me wrong, I love Art. But I somehow was afraid of going to art class, because the teachers' standard of marking were so strict. In Art, you had to be Perfect, making this look proportionate, having to have the shadings done right so that the picture doesn't have the light shining at a wrong position, or the ratio of the bottle neck to the base of the base of the bottle done just right, so that it looks nice.

I always felt pressured in Art class because it never was like Primary school Art, where we could simply splatter paint all over the paper and our teachers would grade us with a job well done. But over time, I liked how much pressure I was in, and eventually fell in love with the Art classes because I learned that in Art, perfect isn't what the teacher wants, it's the amount of hard work, effort that you put into the art piece.

Well, I did some cleaning-up in my room and I managed to find some of my old art pieces. They're not really fantastic, but, I looked at them piece by piece, and noticed how much my drawing style has changed.

I hated doing "Know Drugs" art pieces, and this one was a combination of Chinese New Year and Know Drugs. I was willing to do a piece, but our teacher kept reminding those who didn't hand any in. It was better to and in than to get a big fat zero. Back then, grades were very important to me. Hahah. But this looks really pathetic because no effort was put into it.








I did this next piece and called it "My complicated Life". My Teacher gave us the choice to do anything, so long as it had something to do with strings. I drew a little man running along the strings, which are all messy and jumbled up. This shows that although the road is in front of us, we have a lot of problems ahead of us, because in Life, nothing goes as smooth as silk. I was quite an emo back then, hahah.










Our teacher, then took us to a level higher, by asking us to draw realistic items. I sucked at this big time, and often got pretty low marks for it, thus I gave a "bo-chap" attitude towards the following art pieces.
















I felt really demoralized and wanted so hard to prove that I could draw well. And so I did the next piece, and got great remarks for it. I was so happy that I started improving a lot on myself.







After that piece, my teacher told us to start drawing things that had flowers with shadings. I was so excited because Flowers were my favorite and shadings were a plus point for it! I love shading because it made things look realistic.

I did the next two pieces and guess what, I got Full marks for it!!! A dream come true for me, because Art wasn't a subject that I could get full marks in.






Full marks baby!!






If you're wondering what shape the flowers are in, It's my hand.




I left secondary 2 with one of my favorite pieces, other than the above ones. But the marks were a bit of a disappointment though. I thought I deserved better marks and so I approached the examiner and she replied "are you testing my marking skills?" During the exams though, there were teachers crowding around my table. I thought that I was in deep trouble, because during exams, you shouldn't have teachers crowding around you. But by the end of the exams, Mr.Ni actually told me that he really liked my art piece and he wished me good luck in getting high marks for it. I hoped for high marks too, but I only scored a 80/100. Oh well.

The theme was to design a book cover and I did one with the title "The secret City", drawing a mermaid with building underwater to show that beneath the sea bed, mermaids and their cities do exist, just like "Little Mermaid".

The title


The Full version


I think my mermaid looks hot. Hahah





I was looking forward to Secondary three because I thought that there were art classes, but to my great disappointment, there weren't any. I guess my batch is for the science classes.

I think that by making my batch not have any art classes, great talents like Beverly, Boon Hong and Meiyin lose out on a great talent that can really bring them forth.



Anyway, The New Year is coming in less that 48 hours. I hope everyone do have a blessed New Year! Cheers.