Ramu was one of my students when i taught at the orphanage in Buddwaram. He was playing baseball a couple of days ago, he had a heart condition, his heart gave out and he died...

that's him in the stripes and the glasses

He was a nice kid, and at least when he was at the orphanage, he had a decent life.  One of the nicest christmas drawings of all my classes was by Ramu:

Last week the Indian govt provisionally announced the division of the region, with Hyderabad to be taken away and Andrah Pradesh to find a new capital (click here for more info). Right from the start there were protests and disorder, there is a lot of investment in Hyderabad, it’s where most of the industry and commerce of the state is based and generated. I got an email from Carol, one of the founders of Care and Share and the Daddy's Home orphanage where i was just a couple of weeks ago. She says that for days now in Vijayawada, everything has been closed, shops, banks schools…and there is a lot of trouble on the streets. Yesterday was the birthday of one of the kids in her home and she could not buy a gift nor even flour to make a cake as everything was closed. I spent a lot of time in Vijayawada,  it was a chaotic but friendly city, its hard to imagine empty streets and violence.

Vijayawada

Meanwhile at the Daddy's Home school in Buddawaram (where i was teaching), many teachers (who live in Vijayawada) and external pupils cannot get into school, and shops only open in the evenings if and when there is no threat of protest marches.

...so i left Daddy's Home yesterday. The whole school turned out to wave me off. For once i did not manage to take any pictures, as i was so surpriised and overwhelmed by the send off. Projects will carry on without me and am sure the kids will go on to do many great things. For sure i will miss them, i had an amazing experience, but i hope to go back! In the mean time, any money raised can go towards enriching the resources of the art department. There may still be a few more posts as i get home and start to go through the TONS of material i have amassed in the past month.

In the mean time here are some of the paper mache christmas decorations we have been working on:

So here is some work by some of my computer kids, who have learned to draw using adobe illustrator:

I love the way Ravi filled in the negative spaces between the branches with animals and figures. I think this is brilliant.

Raja is really an excellent student. He is a brilliant draughtsman with a vivid creative imagination. Whenever i propose something a little challenging to my students, to try to push them further, he is always one of the first to grasp the idea and attempt it wth gusto. He is also a very nice person with a sharp and wry sense of humour.

...had lots of fun doing this with my photography students. We call it the "Daddy's Home Alphabet", and have uploaded it onto their school computers so that they can spell their names etc...