* ​Guerrilla art


The journals below include:
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  In other words, it is an exercise in which everything in the room is turned upside down to bring new ideas and inspiration to students. Novelty initiatives like this often break down prejudice, spark innovation, and help realize constructive interests and values for everyone. “(“We turned your world upside down, contemporary Art Practice in the High school classroom and spaces beyond, by Jack Watson.”)


 In this sense, the role of a social movement in artistic activities can be defined as follows.


 “The continuity of social movements in the arts and their ability to adapt to the ever-changing boundaries of public space has led educators and theorists in art education to promote the potential for social and critical engagement in public space art-making (Darts, 2004 ; Lacy, 1995; Pinder). , 2005; Richardson, 2010; Thompson, 2004).”


 Guerrilla art is meaningful in that art is not just beauty, self-expression, or community activity, but contributes to changing the world by inciting social and political movements through it. I remembered that Picasso boldly painted historical and political paintings like Gueronica and said that a painting is a political document.


 For generations, traditional arts education has, for a variety of reasons, favored a formalist approach that promotes media manipulation and craftsmanship while ignoring content and practices relevant to students' lives (Gude, 2000). Therefore, it has nothing to do with the lives of the masses and has turned its back on numerous conflicts and problems in reality, focusing only on the technical and aesthetic aspects, so art has gradually lost its power and has become distant from reality. With this in mind, Guerrilla Art, as the journal notes, enables students to develop higher-level critical thinking skills that go beyond traditional art projects and typical academic experiences through discussion, brainstorming, strategizing action, and ultimately creating meaningful projects.


 In this understanding, I was able to discover the role, effect and importance of guerrilla art. So I came up with guerrilla art for children in Myanmar. It is a class titled ‘An artwork when seen in close-up but resistant in long-shot’.

Then, when they are all drawn, put them back together like a puzzle in their original state as shown below. The more activists and the smaller the picture is divided, the greater the excitement and pleasure of guessing.
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  * This post is a note and summary for study after reading the above article.

​The continuity of social movements in the arts and their ability to adapt to the ever-changing boundaries of public space has led educators and theorists in art education to promote the potential for social and critical engagement in public space art-making (Darts, 2004 ; Lacy, 1995; Pinder). , 2005; Richardson, 2010; Thompson, 2004).

- For several generations, traditional art education has favored a formalist approach that promotes media manipulation and craftsmanship, ignoring the content and practices related to contemporary art and relevant to the lives of students for a variety of reasons (Gude, 2000).

  - Art production in public spaces is based on one's own experience.

-Social engagement work based on contemporary practice is closely related to the curriculum.

  In debating, brainstorming, strategizing action, and ultimately creating meaningful projects, students develop higher-level critical thinking skills that go beyond traditional art projects and typical academic experiences.

-Modeled after the work of contemporary artists, students create work that has real-world and cultural relevance.

-By challenging the boundaries of their own understanding of art, students further articulate their own aesthetic philosophy.

- A social sculptor cannot be a passive learner. The social sculptor is an active agent within his experience.

- Even non-participation affects the work. Because, as usual, people who walked [the route] contributed in their own way by choosing not to participate. Audiences influenced each other by setting their own standards, and influenced the work by establishing the definition of the work.

-These responses reveal a genuine understanding of the postmodern definition of the work of art as a participatory and interactive collaboration between artist and audience. Also, for any art project to be successful, students must find themselves within it while agreeing on the goals of the project. The consent required for this project was exceptional, but students rose to the challenge and found that their courage was rewarded.

  ​I am currently teaching an online art class for Myanmar orphanage children. Before class, I thought about whether online art classes would be effective and which art classes would be suitable for Myanmar children. This concern is very important to me and my life because my vision is to create effective art educational programs for immigrant and third world children. I had prepared for this vision before. As part of the preparation, I ran a project ‘Paint with 1 dollar watercolor paint’ and successfully sold the result of this project at a local gallery's outdoor art show. Through these sales, I thought of various ways to avoid giving up on art due to the quality of paints or materials.

* Related post is here.

 ​So I thought this project would be effective for Myanmar children. On the first day, I asked the orphanage to prepare the following materials.

 But the Myanmar orphanage only had recycled A4 paper, scissors, crayons, and glue. In short, even a dollar, they cannot be spent for art. In addition, the children taking classes had to share a computer screen in a narrow and dark room. Therefore, it was very difficult to do a project that required a detailed skill or task to be demonstrated and followed.

 ​Therefore, I had to completely change the teaching plan after the first class. In this case, instead of detailed painting, the animation format, which uses crayons with thick lines, was very suitable.

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 I paid attention to the background of the appearance of graffiti in Journal Adolescents and graffiti Koon-Hwee Kan Art Education; Jan 2001; 54, 1; Research Library. “At the time, high art was criticized for being too institutionalized and intellectual. There was a great discrepancy between the art in the museum and the experience of the common people. Graffiti equates to the search for alternative forms of expression, non-normative forms of communication such as the use of codified language among peers.”


In particular, I found the passage below to touch my heart strongly.


 "You are standing at the station. Everything is gray and gloomy. Suddenly, one of the graffiti trains lights up the place like a large bouquet from Latin America. ‘ Famous artist Claes Oldenburg praised the beauty of graffiti. Howarth, 1989"


Like the graffiti train that suddenly appeared in the dark and gloomy classroom of an orphanage in Myanmar, I thought I should show the children a colorful world. And for this purpose, I wrote a lesson plan by applying graffiti.

  ​The main theme of the class is “Love Yourself”. Myanmar is suffering from a long civil war and political conflict. In particular, only 20% of Myanmar children who support the military regime can go to school, and the remaining 80% have to fight the fear of death at home. Even 20 percent of those who go to school take military classes, not art, under soldiers with guns. It's easy to think that art is a luxury for these kids and that they must learn to handle a gun in order to survive. But children must love and discover themselves and dream of their future.

 In this sense, the journal What is manga?: The influence of pop culture in adolescent art Masami Toku Art Education; Mar 2001; 54, 2; The passage below from the Research Library is significant.


“By drawing ordinary life scenes in sequential frames through cartoons, students become interested in the life and nature around them. These cartoon activities provide students with an opportunity to find their own identity by making art more meaningful and portraying themselves in a narrative story.


 The role of an art teacher is not simply to teach art production skills or the absolute value of art by simply doing art or appreciating art works. Rather, it is about how to draw interest and motivation for the creation of art so that students can find themselves in their own way. Through the process of making the work and the critique of the work, you will discover what art means to your life while contemplating what the work is. To do so, as a teacher, we must introduce various ways of creating art as self-expression, including the various values of different cultures. You have to open your eyes and see what's going on in the world to find out which art themes are most appealing to students.”


In other words, using the effect of these narratives in cartoons, we can help Myanmar children to express themselves and their environment.
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In that sense, what I devised is a class to create your own art room. This lesson was inspired by the work of a friend of my child below. My child likes and cherishes this dress book made by a friend out of paper more than any expensive toy. Like Lowenfeld's philosophy on art materials, children's imaginations are more valuable than any manufactured toys.

I thought this would be very effective for Myanmar children who lack materials. So, I planned an art room making class as follows.


First, the materials are recycled  paper, crayons, glue, and scissors. ​You will need 3 sheets of paper in total. First, paint the art room space that becomes the background.

Next, I draw the items to be in the art room in an animated format and cut them out with scissors.
After that, attach the items to the art room prepared in advance. It fits your imagination.

Next, draw a picture for the entrance to the art studio.
A three-dimensional art studio is created by attaching two sheets of paper.
The process of drawing and gluing as you imagine is done sequentially. Children can narrate a lot of this process.

I have found that Myanmar Orphanage's online art classes are dealing with a large number of students, so it is helpful to explore different ways of balancing their collaboration and independence. And it was also introduced in the journal below.


 " It will be helpful to explore different methods of assessing collaboration in large class sizes and different ways to balance independence and collaboration in the creative process. Constructivist learning is a dynamic process that must be skillfully facilitated. Facilitating learning requires sensitivity and flexibility. It is not mastered overnight by teachers and students. But it's worth the effort. (Personal perspectives on constructivism in a high school art class by James Francis Hesser)"


In other words, teaching for third world children is a more dynamic process. An effective plan for this process cannot be created overnight. But it's well worth the effort.

  Today, I would like to share the process of how her paintings grow through Olivia, who is experiencing remarkable growth among my students.

  It considers the aspects of identity and the motivation first.

​Below is a description of the age of 13 in artistic development.

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LOWENFELD'S STAGES OF ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT

THE PSEUDO REALISTIC STAGE (ll to 13 years) "In the previous stages the process in making the visual art was of great importance. In this stage the product becomes most important to the child. This stage is marked by two psychological differences. In the first, called Visual, the individual's art work has the appearance of looking at a stage presentation. The work is inspired by visual stimuli. The second is based on subjective experiences. This type of Nonvisual individual's art work is based on subjective interpretations emphasizing emotional relationships to the external world as it relates to them. Visual types feel as spectators looking at their work form the outside. Nonvisually minded individuals feel involved in their work as it relates to them in a personal way. The visually minded child has a visual concept of how color changes under different external conditions. The nonvisually minded child sees color as a tool to be used to reflect emotional reaction to the subject at hand. "
https://www.d.umn.edu/artedu/Lowenf.htm

At this age, self-criticism and self-reflection develop, so it is easy to become dissatisfied with their works and lose interest in painting.

​What impressed me in Olivia's class with me was when we learned the natural flow of watercolor through the wet-on-wet technique. A good artist to explore this technique of watercolor is Japanese watercolor artist Harusaki Kanta.

​ Using the artist's tape, I showed her how to create a forest of trees.

After applying the tape, spray ink over it. Then I had them peel off the tape. She was then surprised by the empty white space that was revealed. "What can I do next?" She asked me with her nervous face. I taught her to create a three-dimensional tree by gathering the surrounding colors without additional lines.

​After this lesson, Olivia created and showed off the perfect, stunning forest.

​ After this lesson, she has been using her method to draw the picture below using her tape.

Lowenfeld warned that variations in ready-made kits or manufactured products sold in the article, GangAge, kill children's interest, curiosity, and creativity. I sympathized with this theory and encouraged them to find the materials around them and paint creatively.

​ And after teaching her expressive techniques from these different materials, I taught her how to paint the sea using tape. She quickly completed her own seascape. And the assignment was completed with softer and more natural colors than the class. She could believe in herself more and boldly experiment in a natural time when no one was watching. She described the work as fun.

​At the age of 13, detailed observation and description of contrast and angle of light becomes increasingly possible. At this time, if you teach how to describe three-dimensional eyes by blending using lines in order, it is very helpful to develop students' descriptive and expressive skills.

​I explained to her how the countless lines create realistic and three-dimensional shapes. She asked, " May I express my eyes in my style with my color?" and then she drew with different style's eyes.

When I saw this picture, I thought she was upgraded.

Humans perceive them with the "inner vision of the soul" (Muller, 1994), and this can be achieved through a good arts education. Therefore, art education in Waldorf schools aims to allow young children to engage deeply in art and strengthen their spiritual sense, emotion, and imagination. Remind them that a complex learning process requires foundation and pedagogical values.

 In other words,  it is more important that art teachers not only teach children the art of drawing and deliver fun through painting but also that it is more important for art teachers to provide a platform for children to upgrade their level through an educational approach based on their philosophy. I realized this at this stage.

 ​Afterward, I taught her still life painting. Looking at this still-life piece, you can see how much she has begun to open her eyes to painting, away from her initial design mindset.

​In this sense, the theory of art education provided a good opportunity to see how important a customized art education program tailored to the developmental stage of children after age 11 is.

​On March 18, I finally got to teach painting online for children in Myanmar. Above all, I made a lecture plan with the contents below before class and asked to prepare materials.

 On the first day, I expected and prepared for the following craft. However, the teacher should always be prepared for contingency and prepare several options for this. In other words, there were no paper plates on the day of education, and only A4 paper, crayons, scissors, and glue were available.

 In addition, the time to translate after the explanation had to be calculated. Because of this interpretation, it is difficult to convey complex skills or tasks when teaching art online.

 ​Also, in our experience, showing detailed work online is still limited.

  ​However, personally, the process of folding paper and drawing pictures while interacting with children through the screen shows that art education is possible online. Simple origami, for example, was very effective. On the 18th, I taught the children to fold hearts. After two attempts, the children made paper hearts perfectly. I folded the middle of the heart like a door that opens and closes and draws another small heart inside it. The children had a lot of fun doing this.

 The first lesson was to simply draw themselves and attach a paper heart to their portrait. In other words, I focused on discovering what I love myself through painting. Recycled paper was used whenever possible.

 On the 25th, there was a second class. The second time, they didn't have the environment to prepare a paper plate. I thought of the lack of art materials for Myanmar children and thought I should find a way to overcome them.

Previously, I ran a $1 watercolor painting project to explore this kind of idea.

 However, after teaching Myanmar children, I discovered that even a dollar can be a luxury for some children. The art materials they can prepare are paper, pencils, crayons, glue and scissors. So, from now on, I have to make a plan to teach them using only this tool.

 ​So what I thought was the dressing room that my daughter had made. My daughter's friend first made her a dressing room out of paper. I made another dressing room with my child.

  This dressing room paper book is made by cutting A4 paper into four sheets. When I was child, art materials were uncommon and expensive, so like today's Myanmar children, we often played with paper and imagined each other. But when I look back, I have happy memories of that time.

  Based on these memories and the dressing room, I changed my lesson plans and methods. In other words, in the second class, after drawing a picture of yourself, you drew a T-shirt, pants, shoes, and hat separately and glued them together.

 It's a very simple task, but the kids were able to learn how to draw fingers, how to represent the whole body, how to put on an artist's verret, how to sign, and more. And by making clothes in her own style, she was able to dress herself up just like a great fashion designer.

 In conclusion, for the art education of Myanmar children, I was able to discover that we should first explore the materials around them, and that we should devise materials that are easy and accessible and less processed if possible so that we can freely imagine them.

​  Above all, I found that online art classes benefit from simple movements, imaginative, interactive, and preferably easy-to-follow forms rather than delicate, time-consuming special techniques or secret tips.