Cotton Woolly Spring Lambs

Adorable spring lambs were the inspiration for my workshop today. I showed my students a photograph of a lamb and pointed out the pink in its ears and around its eyes.
The first step was to use a cardboard template to draw and cut out 2 ears. Most of my students, who are all adults with learning difficulties, are able to draw around a stencil if someone holds it still for them. Others can hold the template still while their carer draws around it. I then gave out pink paint and asked everyone to paint inside the ears, keeping a white border. I also asked them to paint 2 pink eyes onto a large paper plate to which we added black painted centres. Now it was time for the fun to start! Students spread glue onto the plate and stuck down cotton wool balls, avoiding the eyes. I demonstrated how to tease out the cotton wool to make it fluffier. One of my students is completely blind and she really enjoyed the texture of the cotton wool. Everyone made a great job of this part of the task. Once they were done, I gave out pre-cut black paper noses and pink felt tongues and bits of wool to make a mouth. The final step was to glue on the ears. Making the ears point out to the sides rather than upwards makes it look like a lamb rather than a rabbit!

Sponge Print Flowers

This was a lovely project which my students really enjoyed.
I began by handing out a picture of a Viking vase which they coloured in using metallic markers. Most of my students are unable to draw or use scissors so this was a nice way for them to create a personalised vase for their flowers. I encouraged them to spend plenty of time concentrating on their colouring. I then gave out paint and sponges cut into flower-petal shapes. I had put bunches of red, yellow and purple tulips on the tables so these were the colours of paint which I handed out. I gave the students lots of large sheets of paper and let them practice printing for a while. I demonstrated how to create different types of flower using the sponges. Once they had got the hang of the printing, we glued the vases onto a fresh sheet of paper and then printed our bunches of flowers. I got them to use green oil pastels for the stems as I anticipated that the pictures could become quite messy if green paint was introduced.
Everyone was very proud of their artwork!

Garden Gnomes

I loved this garden gnome project posted by Laura at Painted Paper: http://paintedpaperintheartroom.blogspot.com/2012/02/little-garden-gnomes.html
I decided to make a simplified version for my class of adults with learning disabilities.
We made a background by sponge painting with different shades of green paint. I emphasised that they should only use a small amount of paint at a time and should still have some white paper showing through. Some of the backgrounds looked so good it was almost a pity to cover them up at all!
We put these aside to dry and started working on the gnomes. I wanted to provide templates which were as easy to draw round and cut out as possible and came up with 3 triangles - different sizes for the body, hat and beard. With the help of their carers, students cut the triangles out of the painted paper they made a few weeks ago. I gave out circles for faces and black paper boots which I had cut out for them earlier and we glued all the bits together to make the gnomes. The next step was to draw a face and add any other details they could think up. Most of my students are unable to draw with any control and so they rely on their carers for this part. Some of the carers really went to town and created some very artistic gnomes as you can see from the photos!
We had time left to make a quick toadstool from half a paper plate. We glued the gnome and the toadstool onto the background and some students added some flowers to complete the garden scene.

Painted Paper

Time to make more painted paper!
For some reason, this workshop didn't work as well as the last session we spent making painted paper. The last time round it was a relaxing, therapeutic session and the students were really absorbed in the painting. Today it felt more like a competition to see who could paint the most paper in the shortest time. After only 30 minutes I could see that the students had had enough. On the upside, I now have LOADS of painted paper for future classes!

Leaf Print Trees

This project was really enjoyed by my students. They began by either placing their hand and forearm on the paper and having their carer draw round it, or by drawing around their carer's arm. After colouring in the silhouette with oil pastels they began adding leaves. I had brought in leaves in various shapes and sizes. I actually washed them before I gave them to my students because most of them really hate getting dirt on their hands and I thought the sight of a slug might really push them over the edge! I showed them how to place the leaves face down and paint the back with poster paint before pressing them onto the paper. A lot of my students have quite severe disabilities but pressing or patting something down onto paper is something that they can all do. I encouraged some of them to print some fallen leaves at the bottom of the picture too.

Bonfire Night Collage

Remember, Remember the 5th of November!
In the UK we celebrate a foiled plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 with fireworks and bonfires on the 5th of November.
My students used paint and collage to capture the colour and glitter of the event.
We used some lovely deep blue card for the background. The fireworks were made by blowing watered down paint with straws and also by swirling the straw around in the paint to make patterns. The bonfires started with an oil pastel drawing to which they added scraps of tissue paper and sparkly sweet papers. The final touch was some glitter glue which was spread or dotted here and there on the fire.

Painted Paper Tree Frogs

This was a two part workshop which began with making painted paper according to the very useful instructions on Deep Space Sparkle. It's unusual for my students to spend a whole hour working with paint and they loved it. The resulting painted paper was really lovely.
The next session involved using templates to make the tree frogs. There was quite a lot of cutting out required which not many of my students are able to do but they were able to choose colours, draw round the templates (or hold them down while their carer drew round them), apply glue to the pieces and stick them down.
We made a nice background for the frog using tissue paper prints. It took a bit of experimenting before I found some non-colourfast tissue paper, but once I did, it was just a case of the students creating a very rough leaf-shape, sticking it down with water, then peeling the tissue off to reveal a delicate and beautiful printed leaf.
We finished the project by using strips of brown paper to make a frame.

Bird's Nest Collage

I got the idea for this lovely project from the Adventures of an Art Teacher blog.
I had not used the technique of blowing thinned paint through a straw with my class of disabled adults before and was sure that they would find it fun. After handing out the paper I went round each student individually and spooned a teaspoon of paint onto their paper and instucted them to blow (not suck!) the paint towards me. Not all of them managed to blow through the straw successfully but tilting the paper to let the paint run also worked well, as did using the straw like a brush to move the paint around. All of their 'tree branches' looked fantastic and very individual. I then showed them how to draw a few leaves at the end of the twigs they had just created. The paint was of course still very wet and I asked them to try not to dip the pastels into the wet paint. When I cleaned up at the end only one pastel had brown paint on it! Most of them needed help from their carers to draw and cut out some egg shapes from patterned paper. I asked them to place the eggs on the picture and let me check it before glueing them down as there was a temptation to spread the eggs all over the branch istead of grouping them together. I then handed out some shredded newspaper and pieces of raffia which they glued down to make the nest. The final step was to use a blue pastel to give the suggestion of a blue sky. I thought that we might have time to draw a bird sitting on the branch too but the activity took up the whole hour quite easily.