School Art Programme 2024 Updates
Boniface Maina, an experienced artist based in Nanyuki, Kenya, leads the Orkedi children art classes in collaboration with the visiting artists in residence at the Foundation.
The classes are supported by the visiting artists in residence who use the time to dive deeper into their own practice, enjoy the extensive art library in a quiet forest setting and assist Boniface Maina with running the weekly community art education classes. This is to ensure that the children get to be equipped with various artistic and creative techniques in art making.
The classes which officially begun in 2022 have had numerous artists in residence come in and teach the children various art techniques which have been evident in the growth of their art. Below is a snippet of the activities during the period of March to August:
Recycling tissue paper rolls to make pen holders
The class was facilitated by artist in residence Esther Hadassah in making pen holders using recycled tissue paper rolls and decorating them with colour and beads.
2. Recycling tissue paper rolls and wax to make candles
Artists in residence, Esther Mukuhi and Carol Mbirwa, facilitated the candle making class:
3. Recycling shredded paper to make beads
The children engaged in recycling of shredded paper to make beads by tightly rolling the diagonally shredded papers onto biro tubes and gluing the ends in order to fasten the bead.
4. Mosaic
In collaboration with artists in residence, Carol Mbirwa and Esther Mukuhi, the children learnt how to recycle tiles during the creation of a mural. Firstly, a design was created on paper. A suitable wall surface was identified and a picture sketched. The differently coloured tiles were nipped into small irregular pieces to enable the pieces to fit into the spaces of the sketched picture on the wall. The dry cement was then mixed with glue until the preferred consistency of the mortar was reached. The mortar was then pasted on one piece at a time leaving gaps in between each tile piece and following the design on paper. After all pieces were set and a drying period of 24 hours had passed, the grout was applied to complete the artwork.
5. Collage
Visiting artist in residence Ashanti Githinji led the class. The children learnt how to make collage artworks using old newspapers by using cutouts from the pages (pictures and words) and gluing the cutouts onto plain paper. They painted the empty spaces of the surface where the cutouts are pasted using brush and paint to merge the cutouts into the artwork while adding written messages onto the artwork.
6. Motif
Artist Boniface Maina led this exercise whereby the children learnt the difference between motif and mosaic. The children traced dried leaves and cutout shapes to make repetitive patterns on canvas and on paper using a variety of colours.
