New website!

 This blog has now moved to the shiny new Charlotte Miller Art Project website, please go to http://cmap.org.uk/blog to have a look for yourself.

So this is it

This is goodbye to bumpy bus rides and chocolate coated bananas frozen on lollipop sticks. Goodbye to slurping hot soups in sweltering sun and listening to omnipresent latino rhythms. This is goodbye to JUCONI  and the fantastic young people of Guayaquil .

 

It was never going to be easy saying goodbye to over 100 young people in one week. We will simply miss the lot of them. We feel very privileged to have worked with these young talented individuals and to be apart of the cmap project. We´ve seen first hand how the project not only helps to develop communication and creative skills but can boost self confidence and improve individual and collective behaviour. Above all the project provides the children with a safe alternative space away from work on the streets and offers them a space in which they are free to be children, a space in which they can play.

 

Art club wouldn´t be possible without the fantastic support of the JUCONI staff and all the volunteers who have helped us in the past eight months. We would like to especially mention Katie who has helped us with the energetic children of Isla Triniteria every Friday afternoon. We would also like to say a gigantic thank you to everyone who sponsored and supported us in Denmark and the UK . It´s been an incredible experience.

 

Andy and Lone. x

Showtime

 After weeks of anticipation the young people of Balerio Estacio, Fertisa, Nueva Prosperita and Isla Triniteria displayed their creative talents to an eager public in a series of exhibitions around Guayaquil . All exhibitions were held in the local community and the turnouts were fantastic. Many proud parents applauded their slightly sheepish children receiving well deserved certificates for their excellent participation in art club. Local school children came in their masses, many keen to sign up for the forthcoming art club. 

JUCONI staff did an amazing job of welcoming and entertaining visitors who relished the opportunity to create their very own superheroes in the tables provided for the `live art´session of each exhibition. 

A photo slideshow looking back at the last eight months of art club was a particularly popular draw. 

But most importantly the beaming smiles, sense of achievement and pride emanating from the young people and their parents was positively infectious.

Building up to the exhibition

This week the children made their own decorations for the coming week of their art club exhibition, consisting of a big signs with their sector name and lots and lots of bunting. 

Goooooooaaaaaaaal!

The world is gripped with world fever and it is no different in Nueva Prosperina. he children of Nueva Prosperina are pretty desperate to play football whether there´s an international football competition taking place or not. This week they designed their own football shirts complete with name and number and of course we had a kick around as well.

Me gusta

Using a simple mono printing technique the children created prints of their favourite things. The children of Sergio Toral are always very excited to see paint and the demand for paper grew frantic as they worried their precious drawings would dry up before being printed.

Reflexions

We decided to try the old classic art activity of painting on one half of the paper and folding over to make a mirrored print. The children absolutely loved it and were incredibly creative with this very simple activity, which saw everything printed from hearts, bunnies, and rainbows to suns, butterflies and teardrops. The best part is the excitement in their eyes before opening the folded paper to see what they have created.