Art for Gorillas

Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Apr 13 2008 | By: Julie

I send a BIG thank you to my sister Mary and to an anonymous donor for their generous support.

A lesson in Color Theory

I had a nice laugh when Valerie told me about a man from the
Shingiro adult Art of Conservation class as he looked up with great satisfaction after mixing BLUE with YELLOW and arriving with GREEN and expressed, “I used to bring my paint to this guy who would mix colors for me and he always stole some of my paint in the process - I returned home with a lot less than what I started with. Well, now I know how to mix colors I want and I won’t need to see that guy again!”

What may seem like a simple act of mixing two primary colors is truly a new skill for some which results in a functional application of knowledge. I learned that this man paints houses and signs on store fronts. It is gratifying when we sense an immediate application from our lessons, but this is seldom.

Sometimes there is pressure in delivering quick and precise metrics of a project - and are those figures really accurate and at best helpful? Our project’s aim to provide stimulus for creative exploration, learning and a place to contemplate and perhaps reassess common beliefs of ones place in this world can produce rather elusive results. We won’t do people’s thinking for them, we expect people to do their own thinking. This way, it is fair and real.

Thumbs-up to color theory!

Our students work with primary colors to produce secondary colors.

Oh to have an endless supply of gouache and other art materials, would be nice.

Eric and Fahad could hear the students say, “This is like magic!” as they mixed two primary colors and came up with a secondary color.

As Eric, Fahad and Valerie are busy moving about the classroom, occasionally I just sit and take in all the activity, as with this young girl pictured above who I observed concentrating intently on her work.

Fahad puts a small amount of white gouache and a small amount of black gouache in their palettes and Eric instructs the students how to make a grey scale.

Students mix colors for various skin tones.

Fortunately there is a call for accountability in this work we do here. What is the saying…it goes something like…a picture is worth a thousand words…..?

More again soon,
Julie

Tags: Art of Conservation (AoC), Team AoC (Team Art of Conservation)