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.

Papier Mache Toadstools

For today's workshop I wanted to do another autumnal theme but felt that we had done enough autumn leaf projects. I hit upon the idea of making a toadstool. I told my students that we were doing papier mache but in fact this is a cheat's version of papier mache that is more like decoupage. A paper bowl and paper cup were covered in the appropriate colours of tissue. The cup in particular needed a few layers of tissue because it had a pattern on it. Some students (and carers) tried to save time by gluing on enormous bits of tissue but they soon found that this doesn't work because air gets trapped underneath and it doesn't stick down properly. After the pieces were dried with the help of a hairdryer I helped them attach the two together using doubled-up masking tape which worked quite well. The finishing touch was some white painted spots.