One of our most popular activities here at Stratton House is Mural painting. We have a large concrete wall around our grounds made up of many “panels”. Slowly but surely the grounds get brighter as the children explore their artistic sides.
Nov 242011
The latest Mural idea from Beca has really taken off with the children here and most of Saturday saw lots of activity with the paint and brushes in the kitchen.
And whats that Jor is doing? Very important job, coffee for Daddy:)
Tai has yet to take part as he has much study this weekend.
Despite the weather outside the sun was shining inside as I joined in with the children as they eagerly worked at this latest work of Art at Stratton House.
Once again these children have moved me with their growing confidence and skills.
Nuff said, enjoy the pics:)
Aug 052011
Sadly it was Becas last day with us today but she has certainly left her mark with a fantastic idea for part of our kitchen walls.
The kitchen is a block built “shed” that is no rendered, and Beca suggested that we use each block like a separate ”canvas” for yet more Art.
A great idea that fits very well with the expanding Mural themes here at Stratton House. And so was born, The Beca Gallery.
The Mattayom students were home again today, so Gu and Bong were the first to try out their efforts. They worked with pencil sketching today, ready for using paint tomorrow.
The younger children were very keen to have a go as well when they got home from school.
Especially keen was Zak, who did a great sketch of our truck that was parked next to the kitchen at the time.
Mar 272011
What a great Saturday, so much happening in one day.
After breakfast all the children helped finish off the base painting of the playground walls and the fence posts we put in yesterday.
With help from a couple of the boys I attached the chain link fence, finishing that early afternoon.
In anticipation of the afternoons music session the children got everything ready for Freds arrival and got into some practise.
For a while I joined in with Gu , Tai and Jack with them playing drums and keyboard and me playing flute.
For a while it was sounding sweet and I’m sure we will be doing much more of that in the future.
A little after 3pm Fred arrived with Ally and Li Li Tan.
Its been a while since we’ve seen Li Li and the kids were all very happy to see her.
While the music lesson went on Li Li did some work on one of the unfinished Murals, ably assisted by Som. Jor , May and Nu also joined in after the music had finished.
It was another great lesson by Fred, with the children working on the Beatles classic “Let It Be”.
Dec 052010
You do your best, hoping that you’re doing the right thing. You battle both the doubt of others and self doubt to. And then you get a day like this.
All I do here is designed to lift the self esteem and confidence of these children; to help them discover and develop both their own characters and any latent skills they may have.
Yesterday I was suffering the after effects of a touch of food poisoning, ( too much dodgy nam pik), which had meant no sleep the night before and I really wasn’t up to much. Being Saturday the children needed occupying as always. With all the recent Mural practice I decided it was time to give them a free hand.
Given brushes and paint and told to get on with it these wonderful children did me proud.
I would like to say a big thanks to all those who have helped to give the children the confidence to do this all on their own, including Li Li Tan and all the guys at Art Relief International.
I would also like to add yet more thanks to my good friend Ally for all her support and helping me thru those moments of self doubt.
All we need now is much more paint. So if you are as impressed as I am with the children’s efforts , and want to help them keep at it, please feel free to drop by with any odds and ends of outdoor emulsion paint you might have lying around:)
Sunday the 13th saw me slightly under the weather. Luckily I had been free of the virus that the children suffered but I think that the stre of the usual work pretty much exhausted me.
The children we also only recently recovered and so we decided on a quiet afternoon in the leafy village of Chompoo, just a few kilos from the childrens home.
The village of Chompoo is known locally for being home to many very large catfish which many people feed each day.
At the centre of the village there are always a few small stalls on the bridge over the stream that the fish live in.
One of these stalls sells undecorated plaster of paris money boxes. With them you get a few small plastic bags of paints of various colours and use of some brushes. Many families go and relax whilst their children sit and paint the models.
And this is exactly what we did. The children chose their own and sat for sometime working on bringing the money boxes to life with colour. Myself and Boon joined in too. Its wonderful how the simplest things can be so relaxing.
