Getting Painted

While at ARI I ran a workshop on painting murals. However the children at Stratton ABC Foundation were already expert mural painters. I didn't really teach them anything on mural painting. It's more likely that I thought them how loud some canadiens can be. I had such a great day there. To start the day off we played a few games with the children. Games like telephone, in Thai, and "walk like a grandma". Both were super fun and I think the kids had a great time. Laughs were plentiful that day.
I was inspired to do a 3D mural with the children by the 3D art museum in Chiang Mai. Some of the people that I was living with had went to a 3D art museum the weekend prior and I thought that making a 3D mural would be a cool idea for the kids.
So off to the drawing board...we are going to be using paint for the mural, so I should make my example also with paint.

I thought that wings could be a very cool idea. Wings to represent their freedom that the foundation gives them. Wings to represent their ability to grow up and follow their dreams, their ability to fly away. I thought of a starry background to represent a world of endless possibilities. I thought the idea would be very cool.

The kids all seemed to like my idea very much, so we walked around the yard looking for a wall to paint the mural on. We found one and began!!

Some of the children were finishing off a project from when we were there last, and some of them were painting the new mural. No problems, a very relaxing day. Well, it was mostly relaxing until I was attacked! With paint!! One of my fellow volunteers painted me! It became an all out war!!*

It makes me so happy that we were able to come together afterward and team up on others

One of the boys there, Zack, said that he didn't want angel wings. He thought angel wings are for girls. He waned dragon wings. That makes complete and total sense! Angel wing for girls and dragon wings for boys. He is such a great artist, he designed them and got them going all by himself.  I was helping at one point and I think I may have messed it up...he fixed it though. Clearly I am not a dragon expert. I am so happy that this workshop inspired him to create something else. Art is the way of the world.
Before we left for the day I had a surprise for one of the girls at the foundation, Nu. While preparing for my workshop I was reading their website trying to garner information about who we would be working with, because we had only been there once before. I read a call for donations for a birthday celebration.The foundation has been strapped for cash lately and were not able to celebrate Nu's 15th birthday. She had her birthday just a few days before we came. We had to acknowledge her birthday someway! So I made a no-bake chocolate cake recipe given to me from one of the other fantastic volunteers. It turned out to be chocolatey deliciousness.
We sang happy birthday to her and she blew out her candles and we all ate cake. It was a good day.
We also brought balloons, they were not very big and it was a hot day. I suggested that we fill them with water (which I did) and then play catch. The game was going great, lots of times that the balloon almost burst, it didn't. Then as I caught it again, in my hands over my body went the water. It came full circle-just had to burst on me because I suggested it?

The Angel wings were completed, the kids did such a great job!

The Dragon wings as designed by Zack, almost finished. They look fantastic!

John, the founder of the organization is a very happy boisterous man. He took lots of pictures and even put together a little video of us from that day you can see it here on their website.

*I may have started the paint fight, it has not been confirmed.