Isometric Art

Friday, March 29th was a very rainy day. We were packed in tightly in a small room, waiting out the storm, but also spending the time poring over some graph paper, exploring the concepts of Isometric Projection, a form of drawing that is used for architecture, assembly instructions, and other technical illustrations.

We proceeded from very simple shapes up to more complicated forms. Isometric art is surprisingly easy when you have graph paper - the results are immediately impressive and the room quickly forgot about the blustering storm just outside. Click "Read More" to see the entire set of drawings.

Stained Glass

We have been having some great workshops with Tempura paint. This was also the case for Wednesday, March 26th. At Caraes, we had twelve participants join in for some art therapy! The first project was making a "kaleidoscope" of colors, which ended up being a very relaxing way to create with patterns and colors. Click "Read More" to see how everybody created their own unique works, and the amazing Bicycle and Lion art that followed! We are so proud of the skills these artists are showing!

More Puzzle Pieces

Monday, March 24th was a day to try out a collaborative project! To get everybody ready, we first started with some warm-up sketches of blobby things, which turned out to be bacteria. We colored them with bright paint. Our second warm-up drawings consisted of faces, stylized and cartoony. Much to the... "delight" of our artists, there was encouragement to show that the people had either 1. A runny nose, 2. were caught in mid-cough, or 3. were sneezing. The perfect companion piece to some germs.

The culmination of the session was to draw and paint onto some more puzzle pieces, to produce a puzzle with a bright, unified style!

It was a process of many steps and practice to make the final group piece. The final result - a fun, interactive art piece that may contain a message about covering one's mouth when they sneeze?

Thanks again to Claver Haragirimana, Beth Gatonye, Vicent Nsengiyumva and Pastor Theogen for their assistance!

Puzzle Pieces

We had a great art session on Friday, March 21st. The night before, we cut out and prepared a number of thick puzzle pieces. With the participants at Caraes, we started off with some warm-up paintings, and then proceeded to the main event - making a group-created puzzle art piece! Click "Read More" to see the final, complete puzzle!

Box Art 2

Session 2 on Monday, March 17th was just as fun as the first one! Again, we approached the challenge of creating a piece of art that wraps around the sides of a box when it is assembled. Before that, we did a warm up using foam stamps and markers and had so much fun! Click "Read More" to see the whole set of creations.

Box Art 1

Monday, March 17th was a double day for art therapy sessions at Caraes.

Materials were markers and stamps. If you don't have an ink pad, it is easy to draw on foam or rubber stamps using markers - the ink comes off on the paper just like a stamp should.

For session one we did a fun warm-up using the stamps and some free-drawing with the markers.

After the warm-up, it was on to the main event - decorating a paper box on all sides. The challenge was designing a pattern that wraps around the entire box.

Landscape Painting

Friday was our second day of art at CARAES and though it was a short day, everybody who painted created works I would hang on my walls!

As we are still in the stages of calibrating our art therapy, the first day's lesson was our first usage of tempura paint. Eight participants were instructed on the usage of color to create a sense of depth in an image. "Warm" colors such as red, yellow and orange tend to "pop" from an image while "cool" colors such as green, blue and purple recede into the background. With this in mind, we created landscapes with blue mountains, green fields in the middle and bright reds and oranges up front.

Read more to see the entire set of paintings!