Art for Gorillas

Please click here for Reach Out, National Junior Tennis and Learning summer newsletter which includes an article titled Rwandan Youth Show Off Their Skill at Art of Conservation Children’s Tennis Tournament.

The article in USTA’s National Junior Tennis and Learning newsletter shares the story of how we got started and where we are heading.

Progress continues at the newly named Ibirunga Tennis Club as brick walls and fencing are put in place. (Click here for more on the tennis court rehabilitation.)
AoC staff members and a few of the tennis player’s mothers help beautify the land outside of the courts by planting grass, trees, and flowers.

In preparation for teaching our young students more about Volcanoes National Park and the animals which inhabit that forest, we recently trekked to take a closer look at the endangered golden monkeys.
AoC’s Olivier, Valerie, Innocent, Eric and Eusebe inside Zone 2 of Volcanoes National Park discovering more about golden monkeys.

We visit the Kabatwa Golden Monkey group – comprising of nearly 90 individuals – and very near the wall which separates the forest from the cultivated human populated land.

In our forthcoming classes, children will learn about the many different animals that live in the nearby protect area.

Wonderful viewing of these darling animals.

A big thanks to Wildlife Direct for the recent blog training. Victor and Enoch, thanks so much for spending time at the AoC office and providing helpful lessons. Eventually, the entire AoC team will be blogging madly!
Victor with AoC Team, Eusebe, Olivier, Eric, and Innocent.

Today we close our celebration of Africa Weeks for the Animals/Gorilla Art Week, but we will most assuredly keep on with our conservation education classes and commitment in engaging and encouraging children to learn, respect, and care for the endangered mountain gorillas and their habitat, as well as keep you updated on Brandon’s fundraising progress for our project.

It’s been such a pleasure to join in Animal World USA/International’s 1st Africa Weeks for the Animals. Please click here to see when your location and its animals is to be highlighted. You’ll find ways in which you can be involved or just enjoy and learn from other people’s efforts.

Day 6’s spotlight is on the wildly adorable, humorous, and naughty juvenile mountain gorillas. Please enjoy viewing the children’s watercolor paintings and more photos from my recent hike in the forest.

After visuals are passed out to students and we finish our discussions, kids begin painting pictures of young gorillas playing.

Children’s watercolors of mountain gorillas playing. 1.

Photo of mountain gorillas playing. 1.

Children’s watercolors of mountain gorillas playing. 2.

Photo of mountain gorillas playing. 2.

Children’s watercolors of mountain gorillas playing. 3.

Photo of mountain gorillas playing. 3.

Children’s watercolors of mountain gorillas playing. 4.

Photo of mountain gorillas playing. 4.

Children’s watercolors of mountain gorillas playing. 5.

Photo of mountain gorillas playing. 5.

Thanks for being with us on Day 5 of Gorilla Art Week as we celebrate Africa Weeks for the Animals sponsored by Animal World USA-International. Inspiring, educating and empowering communities to understand, love and protect the amazing animals of our world is Animal World’s mission and we hope that our Rwandan students get a sense of this through our approach to conservation education. Our class room discussions are followed by hands-on art activities in which kids get a chance to explore deeper and more personally what it means to share the world with animals and nature.

Please enjoy the children’s drawings below of Mama Mountain Gorilla and her Baby. A few photos from my recent trek to the forest are included.

How does a mountain gorilla look when he or she is happy, sad, mad, hungry, sleepy? Can you capture those facial expressions on paper? These are the questions we ask our students and below are the results. This is Day 4 of the Africa Weeks for the Animals celebration sponsored by Animal World USA-International. Also, click here for Brandon’s progress in raising awareness and funds for AoC and all primates!

Happy, sad, mad, hungry mountain gorilla facial expressions made with pencil and watercolors.

A student drawing perhaps a sad mountain gorilla.

Welcome to Day 3 of our Africa Weeks for the Animals celebration sponsored by Animal World USA-International. On Day 2’s blog, we showed you our student’s pencil drawings of adult, bipedal, female mountain gorillas. What else can these kids do to make an adult female mountain gorilla come to life on paper? Dress them up in colored tissue paper, of course!
AoC students busy creating a mountain gorilla with colored tissue paper.

Worksheets 1 & 2.

Children draw a quick outline of their gorilla and then add tissue paper.

Worksheets 3 & 4.

Angelique and Yvonne laugh while creating their mountain gorilla masterpieces.

Worksheets 5 & 6.

For a check up on how young Brandon is doing in raising funds for our project, please click here. Thanks.

Day 2 of Africa Weeks for the Animals put on by Animal World USA-International. Please check out the amazing efforts of Brandon, a 9 year old in the US helping to raise awareness and funds for our project and all great apes. Cheers, Brandon. Keep up the awesome work!!! (Click here.)

Here we have more wonderful drawings from our Art of Conservation students. The mountain gorilla of the day is an adult female and she is bipedal.

Students are concentrating on their drawings of an adult female mountain gorilla.

Joining forces with many other organizations and individuals, Art of Conservation is pleased to celebrate Africa Weeks for the Animals sponsored by Animal World USA-International. Awareness, appreciation, and inspiration from viewers learning about what people are doing to protect Africa’s animals is sure to ensue.

So let’s begin with the chief of a mountain gorilla family – the silverback. Primary school aged children enrolled in our conservation education classes recently created the pictures below. We spent half of our class session discussing what it means to be a silverback followed by the second half making pictures using watercolors, oil pastels, and a bit of imagination.

Hi everyone!
In a moment we will begin celebrating with Animal World USA-International during their 1st Africa Weeks for the Animals. Organizations and individuals throughout Africa will be sharing their stories about what they do to help protect animals and their habitats.

Right here at Art for Gorillas, we’ll present Gorilla Art Week. Each day we will show a lot of artwork made recently by kids during our conservation education classes. The endangered mountain gorilla is our superstar, of course. So please stay tuned to see the children’s great pictures of silverbacks, juveniles, and more.

Please click here for more Animal World USA-International Africa Weeks for the Animals.