faces of children of the world

A child carrying the world

WE CHANGE THE WORLD

These cubes had to had to have a "letter" side to stay true to the "real" cubes children play with and learn from ....but here the letters are an excuse to empower the children with a bold statement : "we change the world" in a sample of languages taken from the world newspaper press (Russian, chinese japanese, american, british, italian, spanish, french, belgian, arabic, dutch, german...)

A tree in the heart of the city

I built a minute puzzle with a few cities from all around the world...

Bruxelles, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Vienna, Prague, New York, London, find themselves magically linked by their rivers that make up an imaginary tree in the heart of the city....the twigs and branches are formed by meandering streets outlined like itineraries in the city....

The tree symbolizes life and nature in an urban setting, as well as the link between generations (genealogy) and more generally heritage, renewal and change with the passing of seasons...here the tree also links people and cultures from all over the world for a short while, in an imaginary puzzle tree....

The two smaller trees are growing and seem to evoke the spiritual: one of them looks like the magic people-trees encountered in fairy tales ( see the animated face of the tree linking Stockholm and Brussels) and the other evokes religion through a tree ressembling the jewish candlestick (the tree linking Beijing and Amsterdam)


In this three dimensional picture the children's faces remain visible and are smiling at us, Avec ce tableau en trois dimensions, les visages des enfants restent visibles et nous sourient,comme les fruits de ces arbres d'espoirs et d'héritages mélés.....

Blackboard side completed!

Kids drawing on the black board

The children have been busy drawing on the black board sides "their castle"...they used oil pastels, had a lot of fun making up a story as they were drawing ....in this imaginary castle, there seems to be princess locked up in the highest tower, but also a dragon guarding her and two nights pulling their efforts to take the dragon down, or maybe to save him? The dragon seems to be under the spell of a mean witch and only true love and courage can break the spell and set him free....But I can't tell you more because Camille said she wanted to write the story herself....after all, she did the illustrations! And here are a few samples....

Looking for Newspapers, too!!

I'm also looking for newspapers from all over.....and still maps of cities!! I have a few of my own, but not enough to cover 16 boxes and to make the tree i have in mind.....Thanks for helping me if you can...

Looking for (treasure?) maps...

I'm looking for maps of major cities of the world, preferably in the local language spoken....So if you have any maps you're not using anymore, old or recent, in whatever conditions, I'm a taker!! I would also love to know if you know of a place where I can find maps from all over the world in Bruxelles!! Thanks!!

Black board sides

I finished painting all the sides today .... Here is the black board side of the castle, where my children will draw their own castle or fantasy world.... I've been really worried about the boxes not being the same size, but my teacher didn't seem to worry about this...I'll just try to keep it as even as possible...

Getting started

Apart from the pictures of the children that I will glue on one of the sides, I want to paint the other sides. The first thing to do is to "gesso" the boxes: "paint" a coat of white or black medium on top of which I will be able to paint...Except that last week end, feeling inspired, I painted 5 boxes with numbers......BUT could still see some of the "pampers" headings that still showed through the paint and the gesso....

My art teacher told me to paint OVER everything with some white acrylic paint with casein.....I felt a little discouraged at the thought of painting over my first boxes, but when I saw the fabulous paint she advised me to buy, I was really happy and excited again! It's called PAON LIN, Rue Garibaldi in Brussels....a little tiny shop, but fabulous paints! I feel like an artist! I'm just a sham, but these paints .....they're the real thing!!!

My inspiration

This tumble castle is my inspiration for the shape of this project...I made this "castle" out of pampers boxes for my daughter's birthday last year. The children had such a lot of fun playing them, knocking them down with a soft ball and building the castle again!