PTC Weekly #6: Kids Go Mad For Designer Labels and Googly Eyes.

After a few weeks without PTC Weekly, we have some amazing stories to share. In this weeks article we're going to be giving you the low-down on all our latest art classes, as well as welcoming old friends and new partners, and telling you about an extra special visit.. to a movie set!

WEISSENSEE

​We are very pleased to announce that Manon, one of our key team members at PTC, has started working at a refugee shelter in Weissensee, and as part of her new role, has been given the opportunity to introduce art classes to the shelter. Well done Manon!

Manon and Maeille have been working at Weissensee, making art with the children every day this week. One really fun activity they did the other day was a clay modelling activity, where the kids got to make their own coloured clay monsters. As part of the workshop, the kids had to design and name their monster, giving it a unique personality and back-story. As you can see from the pictures, the children really enjoyed developing their monsters, and using as many googly eyes as possible!​​

MAËLLE IS BACK!

We welcomed back our old friend Maëlle for another awesome week of workshops, continuing on from her previous workshop series about identity and storytelling. I spoke to Maëlle the other day about her latest plan, which is to get the children to create a backdrop, props and characters out of paper, and use these to create mini-movies.

The kids spent ages on their individual designs, and put a lot of time and effort into creating their story-lines (some of them were really long!). Watching the kids develop their stories and create their own characters was very revealing, and you could really see how this linked in with Maëlle's previous series. By providing them with a story-making task, the children are naturally inspired to externalize a lot of their own personal stories. In this way, they are offered a way to express and explore their past, present and future.

Some very interesting motifs kept on re-occurring in every child's work: there were a lot of designer labels, like Gucci and Adidas appearing in some of the drawings, and the most common element in almost every single design was a house. The presence of so many houses, is a powerful indication of how important having a home is to all children. It made us all reflect on how it must feel for a young child to not have a proper home, and to have had to leave their old home behind.

Thanks again to Maëlle for another brilliantly conceived workshop series, and congratulations to Manon for facilitating these workshops and developing our presence at the Weissensee shelter. We also wish to add that we really appreciate artists like Maëlle for developing workshop ideas that have a continuous theme- this continuity allows the children to feel grounded and invested in the project, and it also allows us to develop more complex and ambitious art projects.

SCRATCH ART IN PANKOW

A few Saturdays ago, Julie, a long-term PTC volunteer and artist, created and led a scratch art workshop. This workshop was a huge hit with the kids, and they all remained super-focused on their activity, so much so, that the art class continued for a full 2 and a half hours!

Martin explained to me the process behind the scratch art: first, you layer the paper with pastels and cover everything with a drawing or patterns, and then you put a layer of candle wax on the top- this layer of wax separates the colours on the bottom from the top surface, creating a barrier that you can then easily scrape away- then, you add a final layer of black paint. When it's done, you take an object and you start to scratch the black paint away, revealing the colourful pattern beneath.SLXLM We had 20 children in the class that day, and they all really enjoyed this activity. Thank you to Julie for organizing such a successful workshop!

WEAVING IN PANKOW

A few weeks ago, Morgane came up with the awesome idea of hosting a weaving workshop with the kids. We love these sorts of workshops because the children leave with a special piece of artwork, or craft, that they made themselves and can feel very proud of. These dream catchers are particularly good, as on a lot of occasions, art work can be easily lost or broken, but these beautiful dream catchers can be easily hung and are quite robust. They also make lovely presents, and a lot of the children made them for their family.

We made the dream catchers by choosing different pieces of coloured wool, and slowly wrapping them around a frame made out of twigs- the frame could either be two twigs crossed over in the middle, or possibly three. Once the frame is covered, leaving some length at the end which is wrapped up with more wool to keep everything secure, the dream catcher is complete! They can also add another loop at the top so that they can hang it.

Thanks again to Morgane for organizing such an amazing workshop-- and now, we will all have amazing dreams too! :)

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! A few months ago, Divina and Mizu Mugi led a movie director workshop in Pankow, where the kids were given the chance to write their own scripts, design costumes and then shoot their movies with an HD camera. The kids showed a lot of interest in the movie-making process, and some even told us that their dream was to visit a movie set. So... we decided to surprise them with a trip to see a REAL movie set!

In March we travelled to the old airport of Templehof, to visit Matthias Schweighöfer and Florian David Fitz on the set of their new movie "100 Dinge". The kids were so happy to meet the two famous German actors and discover how a film is made. We want to thank Pantaleon Films GmbH, Matthias Schweighöfer, Florian David Fitz and their whole team for welcoming us and supporting Pass the Crayon, and a big thanks also to Franziska and Lotta for making it happen!

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