Archive for the ‘art’ Category
When we are at war, do we have a NEGATIVE impact on the environment? What happens to our natural world when contiguous countries are perpetually in conflict? When different ethnic groups oppose each other, when jealousy and other human weaknesses drive families and neighbors to hostility, when hunger overrides common sense, how do these things effect our environment? Join me in viewing our student’s perspectives to these questions as we continue with: Lesson Where Art shows the NEGATIVE and POSITIVE Impact of People on the Environment. We continue with the negative or destructive behaviors and impact of people.
Much more art to share with you, please stay tuned.
What are people’s negative and positive impact on the environment? How do our art students express their thoughts on the environment? Will a healthy environment immediately benefit these students and their families? What human behaviors are acceptable or not acceptable when caring for our natural surroundings? Let’s take a look at illustrations from our Art of Conservation students when presented with these questions. To begin with, we look at the NEGATIVE / DESTRUCTIVE impacts. Polluting our Rivers and Lakes A number of students believe people have a negative impact on the environment when human excrement enters into the lakes and rivers. Below, four illustrations.
Much more to come!
Lesson Where Proportion Helps us Observe More of the World Around Us - DRAWING the HUMAN HEAD Firstly, I wish to begin with a quick response to Paula and Theresa’s comments from the last post Life Without Art and Music? Paula, please visit us here in Rwanda and show us how to make a Podcast of the children singing to share on the blogs. We would love it! And Theresa, I am happy to hear you can find some joy while viewing I grew up in a family that had and continues to have a wonderful combination of creativity and seriousness. I believe if I can’t laugh and play and create in the face of the challenges life presents, then it would be hard to cope and I most certainly wouldn’t be doing any service to the animals and people here in Africa, which is why I’m here in Rwanda. If it appears like our Art of Conservation students are having fun while they are in class learning and creating new ideas, then I am extremely happy as well. Equally important, I think, is what the students are teaching us. Thanks, Paula and Theresa, for your comments and support.
Below, two drawings from Shingiro adult student Pierre Damien SENDUGU.
Below, two drawings by 12 year old student, Fabrice ISHIMWE.
Below, two drawings by Eric HAKIZIMANA - age 14.
More again soon with Putting Things in Proportion: Part 2. Julie
That’s like imagining the Virunga Forest WITHOUT mountain gorillas, forest buffaloes, golden monkeys, and forest elephants (yikes!). ART - Recently, we, Valerie, Eric, Fahad, and I, brought to our Art of Conservation classes a variety of additional artist’s tools. Due to time and financial resource constraints, we will most likely not get to a lesson dedicated to experimenting with acrylics or oils on canvas, for example. This is OK - we cover a lot in our three-month courses - but we still want to briefly expose our students to a few other possibilities and choices for making art.
MUSIC - In addition to art materials, we bring to class any musical instrument we can get our hands on. No one really knows how to play the guitar, but who cares? Sometimes it is just great to make noise.
Life WITHOUT art, music, and mountain gorillas…NO WAY!
Art of Conservation welcomes Dr. Lucy, MGVP’s regional veterinary manager and WildlifeDirect’s Gorilla Doctors, to this weeks classes. Lesson Where Art Tells a Story is the theme for students to consider as they listen to Dr. Lucy share the story of Nzeli, a female mountain gorilla in Bwenge Group in the Karisoke Habitat. Our students receive the worksheet pictured below for illustrating a beginning, a middle, and an end to this real life action that takes place in the nearby forest,
Let’s take a look at the BEGINNING of our story with the help of class volunteers. Valerie, with her ever-expanding knowledge of veterinarian terms, interprets for Lucy.
Below, student’s illustrations of the story’s BEGINNING.
Moving now to the MIDDLE of our story, Dr. Lucy asks for volunteers to pose as trees. Using the dense vegetation as her cover, she pretends to prepare the blow gun she would normally use to administer antibiotics to her patients. The vets would never let any of the gorillas discover what is about to happen…a syringe, frequently referred to as a ‘flying dart’ is filled with antibiotics and is placed inside a 54 inch-long tube which then attaches to a blow gun. When triggered, the gun, with an oxygenated cartridge, propels the flying dart and hopefully hits the patient in the correct place - all occurring without any gorilla taking notice.
When first asked how veterinarians give medicine to a wild gorilla in the forest, some guesses included the vet giving an ill gorilla a banana with the medicine hidden in the fruit. Not a bad idea, but we soon learn it’s not that easy. I think our students developed a better understanding of how wild gorillas are given medicine when the veterinarians believe it is necessary. The pictures below show the vet in a distance and not right next to their patient.
Dr. Lucy in action!
THE (happy) END. Nzeli recovers from her injuries with the help of antibiotics and - just as my dad who was a MD often prescribed to aid many ailments, ‘Get it out in the sun!’
Thanks to Dr. Lucy and all of our guests who graciously take time to visit Art of Conservation classes and speak with our students. Through discussion and art lessons, we all gain a better understanding of what it entails to care for wild animals, forests, and people. Perhaps budding artists and / or veterinarians are blossoming as we speak. Until next time,
Forest Elephants, Loxodonta africana cyclotis, is the last in our series of
More vital information on elephants here, Elephant Voices and here, Ethiopian Elephants.
It is difficult for me to unwind after Saturday and Sunday children’s classes. I receive such a big boost of energy being with the kids and working with Team AoC: Valerie, Eric and Fahad.
We’ll explore more animals, plus bugs and birds of the Virunga Forest in future Julie
We just love GOLDEN MONKEYS! Cercopithecus mitis ssp. kandti Kids in Saturday’s Art of Conservation class learn about golden monkeys. Pencil drawing and watercolor by Pacifique MFITUMUKIZA. Pictures made by NTIRENGANYA. Found in the bamboo forests, this primate weighs 10 to 15 pounds. TUYIRINGIRE’s pictures. Habitat loss through agriculture, wood extraction, human encroachment and illegal harvesting continue to be the major threats to this animal. Student BIZIMANA’s creative expressions of a Golden Monkey. Thank you Theresa and Professor Minor for your recent comments. I’ll share here the quote Vernon Minor shared with me. Fahad still busy at the chalkboard. A student examining his work. Julie
Eric taught us how to draw a mountain gorilla and now we move on to Fahad’s instruction on how to draw a forest buffalo. Forest buffalo, Syncerus caffer nanus, not to be confused with a savannah buffalo! Below, Annonciata NTAWIZERA, a student from Art of Conservation’s Shingiro adult class draws and paints a forest buffalo. Forest buffaloes, smaller than savannah buffaloes, are below 120cm in height and 320kg in weight. Their smaller, but heavy build, short legs and slow pace isn’t a disadvantage to them when they want to retreat into the dark forest cover. Annonciata’s pictures above show the animal’s small, back-swept horns - unlike the savannah buffalo’s enormous bossed horns. Here’s a collection of watercolors from 9 Shingiro artists. Don’t forget about the other guys! While mountain gorillas are surely the claim to fame here in the Virungas, our students bring to light a few of the other wonderful animals inhabiting this area. Fahad busy at the chalkboard. I am not in the forest often and I have yet to see a forest buffalo, but as long as they are there doing their forest buffalo thing I am greatly satisfied. Hmm, what Animal of the Virunga Forest will Art of Conservation students illustrate next? Julie
Over the next few posts I’ll share with you pictures made by our With pencil and paper, students from all three classes follow Eric’s instruction on There are 740 mountain gorillas remaining in the world today with half of the population in the Virunga Forest and the other half in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. 70% of these mountain gorillas are visited by tourists each year.
The Virunga Forest - Parc National des Vocans (PNV) - consists of 125 Km2 of mountain forest and six Virunga Volcanoes: Karisimbi, Visoke, Mikeno, Sabyinyo, Gahinga, and Muhabura. Genetic similarity between people and gorillas is around 98%.
Rwanda, where our art classes are being held, is a poor rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in mainly subsistence agriculture. A few of the environmental issues are deforestation, overgrazing, soil exhaustion, soil erosion and widespread poaching.
AIDS-HIV transmission, malaria, and tuberculosis are threatening diseases prevalent in Rwanda. So are food or waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever.
There is strong evidence suggesting that many primate species are susceptible to many of the infections that humans are afflicted with and that the transmission of infection can occur in both directions. Please stay tuned for Fahad’s instruction of more VIRUNGA FOREST ANIMALSl! Julie
Our Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday Art of Conservation classes follow the same general format each week. We pick an art media and a theme. That way, the instruction each week is similar. Of course, every student is different. Our lesson last week was a drawing exercise using pencil and paper. Students were asked to draw a gorilla, a forest elephant, and a wild buffalo as they might appear IN the forest and then the same three wild animals as they might appear OUTSIDE of the forest, where outside is farmland or villages - or someone’s backyard. The drawings created by all 150 people (50 in each class), despite the fact that they live in different places near the gorilla park, were strikingly similar. The elusive forest elephants were the least anatomically correct animal whereas the wild buffalos and mountain gorillas were more recognizable. IN the forest, animals were always surrounded by foliage. OUTSIDE of the forest, the drawings show people wielding Rwanda’s ubiquitous yellow jerrycans and pangas, (machetes) and yelling to fend off the animals. Below, is a collection or sample I put together from twenty-two different drawings from the drawing exercise showing wild animals OUTSIDE of the forest and how people react.
Nyabigoma Primary School’s headmaster was with us on Saturday for class. He told me that he has 669 children enrolled in school with only six classrooms and seven teachers and limited materials.
Most classes we begin with physical exercises that I hope help make everyone feel more relaxed. We begin with breathing and then move on to stretching, balancing and trying various yoga poses. I try to make it fun and positive for everyone.
Balance is an important concept in the interconnectedness of life. More again soon, |
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Welcome to Art for Gorillas.
This is Julie Ghrist, director of Art of Conservation (AoC):
Creating a Healthful Connection between People & Mountain Gorillas.
Team AoC includes Valerie Akuredusenge, Eric Mutabazi, and Fahad Ndangiza.
AoC is a partner of Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, Inc. (MGVP, Inc.).