Today we share with you more detail on the expressive arts session on Sunday which was the making of The Floral Bouquet Self-Portraits. Click here to learn more about this workshop from previous post
Below is the step by step process in pictures…
Below are the individual portraits of our teenage participants:
Very creative use of the fruit stamps and stencils to make these awesome portraits, young ladies! Thank you for sharing your insights and reflections too. We wish you all the best in your learning and development. Till the next time!
Yesterday, my siblings and I co-taught part 4 of our Learning from Nature’s Resilience workshop series. This time we took inspiration from the surviving trees and other flowering plants that have recovered and started to bloom, and some are even bearing fruit again!!!
Our participants were homeschooled teenage survivors of difficult situations traveling all the way from Northern Cebu.
My brother Joel Lee, Permaculture and Aprotech Solutions educator, facilitated the warm up laughter yoga and encouraged its regular practice as a way to health and relaxation.
My sister Eddy Lee, a conservation educator and ecotherapist, led the tour of the sanctuary’s food forest, higlighting the effect of Typhoon Odette on the fruit trees that were bent, and broken and uprooted. They noticed how the trees are starting to recover because the leaves have sprouted back. Some of the surviving trees, including a few mango trees, are even flowering. The meditation and vegetable gardens have also recovered and are blooming.
Here are the tools for the expressive arts session: Floral Bouquet Self-Portraits
Before starting the expressive arts segment of our Learning from Nature’s Resilience workshop I distributed the flower quotes below for the participants to discuss within their groups:
“Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower.” -John Harrigan Flowers grow back even after they are stepped on, so will I!” – Author Unknown “Nothing in nature blooms all year. Be patient with yourself!” “A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.” – Zen Shin
Paulina Constancia demonstrates how to make the Floral Bouquet Self-Portraits using fruit stamps (slices of the following fruit were provided: okra, cucumber, eggplant and balimbing aka starfruit or carambola)
The instruction for the expressive art session was : Your life is God’s gift to you and what you make of it is like a bouquet of flowers that you give back to God, the earth and humanity. What kind of blossoms will you bear? As you create your floral bouquet portrait focus on your pesonal resilient trait and be ready to share this with the group.
How to Make Your Floral Bouquet Self-Portrait
Use fruit slices provided: (okra, cucumber, eggplant and balimbing aka starfruit, carambola,) and watercolor to make prints on paper of flowers.
Practice with your stamps and layout on scrap paper provided before doing your final layout on the artboard provided
Allow work to dry completely before adding design details with ballpen and pencil crayons. Feel free to do freehand drawing or use some of the stencils available to add details to your work.
Prepare to share your work and personal resilient trait with the group.
Floral Bouquet Self-Portraits in the makingQuick sample floral portrait made by Paulina Constancia Tools used: carambola (balimbing), cucumber (pepino), bird stencil, water-colour, brush, ballpen
MONA -Museum visit
Our teenage participants gather at the meditation garden at the Justice German Lee Nature Sanctuary
Thank you for joining us for a fun learning adventure at the Sanctuary. We hope you will apply the things you learned here today – Care for the earth, care for each other, care for the future and care to laugh, lots! And believe that you are resilient, you have the capacity to bounce back from the adversities life may throw your direction.
Today we share with you more detail on the expressive arts session on Saturday which was the making of the Me Tree Self-Portraits. Click here to learn more about this workshop from previous post
Here you will find the individual creations of our teenage workshop participants from the St Alfonso Maria Fusco Home, Compostela.
The portraits with their corresponding hand carved camote stamps
Awesome camote carving and leaf pattern prints, young men! Thank you for sharing your insights and reflections too. We wish you all the best in your learning and development. Care for the earth, care for each other, care for the future and care to laugh, lots!
On Saturday, my siblings and I co-taught part 3 of our Learning from Nature’s Resilience workshop series. This time we took inspiration from the surviving trees and the regrowth of their leaves and worked with a group of teenage scholars from the St Alfonso Maria Fusco Home, Compostela.
My brother Joel Lee, Permaculture and Aprotech Solutions educator, facilitated the warmup laughter yoga and encouraged its regular practice as a way to health and relaxation.
My sister Eddy Lee, a conservation educator and ecotherapist, led the nature walk, inviting our teen participants to pay attention to the various species of the trees that survived Super-Typhoon Odette and their leaf patterns. They were able to identify most of our fruit trees and surprisingly some of the native trees. When asked why they had some familiarity with the native trees, most of them said that they still had these trees in their mountain villages.
The ME Tree Self-Portrait (the camote stamps)
We were recently gifted with some camote (sweet potato) and I thought of using this as a medium for the day’s expressive arts session which is the making of The Me Tree Self Portrait.
I used two medium camote and cut them into thick slices and distributed them among the participants. They were each provided a dull knife as a simple carving tool to make their leaf stamps.
Paulina Constancia demonstrates how to make the camote stamp and design The ME TREE Self-PortraitP.Constancia sample ME TREE
The instruction for the activity was : If you were a tree, what kind would you be, what leaves would you bear and as you createyour portrait focus on your pesonal resilient trait and be ready to share this with the group.
How to Make Your Stamped ME TREE Self Portrait using a camote slice:
Choose leaf design (shape, veins,etc)
Cut the camote slice to shape/margin of your leaf of choice
Using the dull knife provided start carving out the pattern, bearing in mind that the part you remove from the camote is what won’t print or register on your paper.
Practice stamping on scrap paper before doing your prints and composition on the artboard.
Use watercolor or stamp pad for the color and allow to dry before adding design details with ballpen and pencil crayons
Prepare to share your work and personal resilient trait with the group.
Our camote carvers…Stampin’ away…Museum visit after the workshop (inside the MONA)Our teenage participants in front of the museum Teenage scholars from the St Alfonso Maria Fusco Home at the Justice Lee Nature Sanctuary. With them are Paulina Constancia, Sr. Vicenta “Inday” Yap, Sr. Salve Narvaja, Eddy Lee and the goldens- Gabby and Sunny
Thank you Sr. Inday, Sr Salve and our teenage workshop participants for the learning adventure that we shared at the sanctuary. Till the next time!
Today I thought I’d show more photos of the art making component of our “Learning from Nature’s Resilience” training the trainors workshop which was participated by head teachers and principals of Cluster 7- Carcar City DepEd.
It was a fun and inspiring day learning about resilience through nature’s example. From a previous post, I shared the enormous damage caused by Odette to the Justice Lee Nature Sanctuary here in Carcar. Below is a photo of our beloved Acacia tree right after Odette.
It appears that the super-typhoon basically “claimed its life”, but picture below shows what our beloved acacia tree looks like now…fresh new branches and leaves have emerged.
It is a living example of resilience. It may have been hurt and broken by Odette, but it has evidently bounced back and is now thriving!
About the WORKSHOP
Inspired by the re-emergence of leaves amongst the trees that were originally thought to have been completely damaged by the super-typhoon, we initiated a resilience art workshop using leaves as base material.
We had a tray of various pre-cut leaves and distributed them among the participating head teachers and principals. They were not allowed to choose because this is a workshop on resilience. You have to find a way to make good use of your “givens”. I was amazed by what the teachers came up with.
The instruction was: Using the leaf provided make a leaf self-portrait that shows this..”I am resilient because I am _________” (participants choose their key personal resilient trait)
This teacher painted a background of rainbow colours before making the leaf imprint.This teacher made a few two-colour imprint of her leaf and then drew her portrait using a pen once the water-colour imprint had completely dried This teacher made several leaf imprints using three different colours and turned it into hair for her self-portrait. Tri-colored leaf hair for her self-portrait. Head teachers and principals of Cluster 7- Carcar City DepEd busy creating their Leaf Self-PortraitsHere is an image summary of the works of all the participants from Cluster 7 of Carcar City DepEd Our tall acacia tree may have fallen but it is definitely not dead. Now lowered closer to the pond, its bent trunk is more accessible and serves as an awesome rest and recreation spot for our farm felines. Once again –All’s well (actually “better” according to our cats’ meows.)😹
MoNA continues with its community outreach in partnership with the Psychology Volunteers on Bikes (Psych Vols). This past weekend at the Katunggan Permaculture Adventure Farm (KPAF) in Carcar, Cebu- MoNA and Psych Vols conducted “Leafy Butterflies, Cheesy Pizzas”, an expressive arts workshop with a group of women and children in difficult situations.
Sample project provided by Paulina Constancia using leaves.
Below is a slideshow of this nature printing project “The Leafy Butterfly”:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Here are photos of the girls working on their leaf prints:
Psychology Volunteer Edna Lee facilitating nature printing workshop
Here are some of the leafy butterflies that the girls created:
A group photo of the girls with their leafy butterfly art
One more project for the group—-pizza making!!!
Cheesy- Tomatoey pizzas by design!!!
A big thank you to the Psych Vols, KPAF, My Refuge House and of course to the girls— for their eager and joyful participation in this weekend workshop.
PAULINA CONSTANCIA MoNA 