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!

Chinese Dragons

In this workshop we celebrated Chinese New Year by making some fierce dragon masks. I began by handing out some photocopies of a dragon mask and some metallic markers. Everyone had to colour in two masks. The students spent lots of time on these. Once they had finished, I asked the carers to cut the eyes and nose out of one of the masks. I showed them how to make little zig-zags from scraps of paper which we glued onto the backs of the eyes and noses. These were then glued onto the other mask to make a goggly 3D effect. The mask was then glued onto a paper plate for strength. I gave out some strips of red and orange tissue so that students could make some flames to come out of the dragon's mouth and finally we made a spiky fringe from scraps of painted paper.

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.