St David's Day Rabbits and Daffodils

It is good luck to say 'white rabbits' three times when you wake up on the 1st of March (I've no idea why!) and daffodils are the national flower of Wales, so I decided that this project would be a good one for St David's Day.
I pre-cut some rabbit silhouettes (students could choose between pink and brown) and demonstrated how to use a dry brush technique to paint fur onto the rabbits. After putting them aside to dry, we used petal-shaped sponges and yellow paint to print daffodil petals onto a large sheet of pale green paper. Most of my students are very familiar with sponge printing now and have really got the hang of it. I passed around green pastels so that they could draw some stalks and leaves. The next step was to add details to the rabbits. We just used marker pens for this which worked fine on top of the dry paint. After glueing the rabbit onto the centre of the picture, we created 3D daffodil trumpets by sticking on little paper cup cases. By an amazing stroke of luck I found miniature paper cases which were already coloured yellow. I think the project would also look nice with white paper cases.

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!

Partridge in a Pear Tree Paper Wreath

I prepared for this workshop by cutting the centres out of paper plates and making some 2-piece templates for the partridge.

Students made golden pears by printing with real pears. I was a bit disappointed with the results - I think maybe the knife I used to cut the pears wasn't sharp enough so that the printing surface wasn't smooth. The students didn't mind though! After using the templates and some painted paper to make the partridge, we assembled the wreath, adding in some crepe paper leaves.

Painted Paper Cats

Our painted paper came into use again for this workshop. I created simple two-piece templates for the cats which students embellished with cut-out paper eyes and wool whiskers. I wanted to keep the background simple so that the cats would stand out so we just used a contrasting colour of paper for the wall.

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.

Leaping Fish Watercolour and Torn Paper

This project was inspired by this artwork by Deborah Angyo Gorman:

Students began by using a wet-on-wet watercolour technique to create a background. I then gave them all a drawing of a fish which I had prepared in advance. They (or their carers) cut it out and they then began covering it in torn foil paper.
This activity was nice and simple to explain and the students became very absorbed in gluing down the paper.
Only drawback is that the reflective foil makes the pictures hard to photograph!

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.

Collage Silhouettes

I spotted this project on Mrs Jahnig's Art Space and decided to give it a whirl with my art group.
As soon as students started to arrive for class I began sitting them one by one in the 'hot seat' so that I could draw their profiles. I just used a lamp to create the shadows on large pieces of paper. It was a real challenge to get my students to sit still and not turn around to see what I was drawing! I had to be very fast and some of the profiles were a little rough. One of my students did not manage to sit still at all and so I drew the profile of his carer instead. After they all had their profiles drawn, I asked the carers to cut them out (one student was able to cut out his own) and then they began flicking through magazines and choosing images that appealed to them. I told them that I wanted them to create a picture of what goes on inside their heads and so they should choose pictures of things that they like or like doing. I'm not sure if they all understood the concept but they were all very definite about what images they did and didn't like. Few students could cut out the pictures themselves but they could all help apply the glue and stick them on to their profiles. I always like to use glitter glue for a bit of glamour!
The profiles were quite big and most students didn't have time to completely cover them in pictures during the hour-long class. It would also have been nice to mount the finished profiles on to black paper to frame them.
It was really interesting to see which pictures the students chose and I felt like I knew them better by the end of the class.

Collagraph Prints

I love printmaking and thought that collagraphs would be a good technique to try with my regular group of adults with learning difficulties.
We began by drawing an oval face-shape on card and cutting it out. In most cases the carer had to do the cutting. In my class all of the participants have a carer with them.
After they cut out the face shape, they drew simple eyes, noses and mouths on card, cut them out and glued them on to the face. Make sure you use decent paper glue and leave time for it to dry or else you will have eyes and noses sticking to the ink roller later!
I prepared a printing table with two colours of ink and got the participants to come up one at a time to make their print. If you have a large class it's a good idea to provide an extra activity for them to do while they are waiting. I usually have around 6 in my class but on the day of this activity I had 12 which meant there was a lot more waiting around than I would have liked.
I got them to ink up the face in one colour, place it face down on the paper and then go over the top with another colour which gives quite a nice 'arty' effect. All the participants really enjoyed using the ink roller. Even those who have trouble controlling a paintbrush seemed to find it really easy which made me think that printmaking is definitely a good activity for this group.
They all got a kick out of peeling off the card to reveal the face underneath even if some of the faces turned out a little scary looking!

Waterfront Houses

I'd seen various versions of this project on art blogs and decided I could simplify it for my group of adults with learning difficulties.
I prepared for this class by using a paper trimmer to cut some squares, rectangles and 'roof shapes' from coloured paper and printing out a photo of waterfront houses relected in water.
I began the class by passing the photo around to give everyone an idea of what we were aiming for.
I then asked them to use oil pastels to draw a wide stripe across the centre of the paper. This was to be the 'ground' that the buildings sit on. I also got them to use a blue oil pastel to draw waves on the bottom half of the paper. (actually I forgot to get them to do that until later but let's pretend I did it here!)
Next they had fun making their houses by gluing on the paper shapes (with lots of help from their carers!) Some decided to draw curtains at the windows, letter boxes, etc.
Now for the challenging part - they had to use watercolour paint to create the reflection of their houses in the water. To make it as simple as possible, I only asked them to paint a rectangle or square the same colour as the house above - I didn't expect them to paint the windows and doors too. Their carers helped them to choose the right colours.
Once that was done, all that was left was to use blue watercolour to paint the rest of the water around the reflections and a beautiful blue sky!

Collage Birds

I did this workshop with my regular group of adults with learning difficulties. None of the group can really draw or copy an image, so I prepared for the class by drawing some VERY simple, cartoonish birds with a marker pen on quite large sheets of paper. All the birds were different and I let everyone choose the one they liked best. (I had 6 participants in this workshop.)
Next I got them to make some patterned paper by drawing and scribbling on coloured paper with oil pastels. I then got them to cut or tear their patterned paper into squares which they had to share with the rest of the group so that everyone had a variety of colours. I also gave out some squares of nice shiny paper (recycled wrapping paper and gift bags). Then they set to work glueing the pieces of paper on to their bird. All of the participants had a carer with them so they helped make sure that the glue went in the right place ie ON the bird not around it!
I didn't have any 'googly eyes' with me that day so I just drew some eyes and cut them out for them.
After they had stuck everything on I went back over some of the lines I had drawn with the marker pen just to neaten the whole thing up a bit. This was a nice workshop which everyone seemed to find quite absorbing. Everyone tends to take their work home with them after my classes but if you have space for a display it would be nice to cut the birds out and place them along a branch or phone line.