Arts Explorer #9: Guerilla Art

What is Guerilla Art All About?

This week our assignment required making a sort of street art!

I had never heard of this idea before but ultimately the goal was to leave anonymous pieces of artwork in public places for others to see. I decided on spreading smiles :)

I chose hot pink post-it notes as my art piece and wrote the words “Smile More” in many different ways. I then set off to spread good vibes to Toronto along my daily commute. I was inspired to leave post-it notes throughout my commute as I have noticed that not many people smile or look remotely happy while on the go train and subway, and I felt if I saw an anonymous note like this I would at least crack a small grin. 

Some of my Post-it notes I made

Here are the many places I posted my notes...

on a seat in class

on a post on campus

on someone's bicycle

 a Ryerson University campus map

In the subway station

 

 on the GO train ticket puncher

(keep scrolling down)

Arts Explorer #8: Magical Thinking

When engaging in pretend play I believe we are exercising our creative and imaginative parts of our brains. In magical thinking we tend to imagine ideal or unrealistic situations, in a way to play out unknown scenarios in our lives.

This week my magical thinking created Ms. Betty Boot. While on the train home I could not decide what object to bring to life, until I looked down at my feet...

Meet Ms. Betty Boot! She is a two year old winter boot (however in boot years she is much more mature). Betty Boot loves traveling and is always up for a new adventure. Her favourite season is winter and she absolutely loves snow. Betty Boot has a warm and calming personality but is not afraid to stand up for herself when people try to push her around. She lives on a mat inside a front door with other boots and shoes which she considers her family. Betty Boot hates when she gets stepped on, and she also hates puddles. Betty Boot is very much into style and loves accessories like her sunglasses. Betty Boot maintains a very active lifestyle and her favourite color is PINK!

Implications for the future...

This activity is a great way to encourage imagination and magical thinking. When working with children in the future this is a great potential activity, since children are always creating new things as it is. The only way I would adapt this activity to make it more developmentally appropriate for younger children is to provide them with many objects and materials to bring to life. I would also get the children to share their new object’s personality and background aloud, either in a circle or small groups as opposed to writing it up.

Art word of the week: Design

I feel design consists of the composition of any piece of art. A design can take form in many ways for example...a creative image on paper, a sketched outline, structure of a building or an idea in your head. For my project this week, design included bringing an object to life. I designed aspects of the personality in my mind and chose elements to add accordingly for an effective "living" object. I designed Betty Boot through both my mental and visual ideas