An Amazing Sighting!

My husband and I like to go to a local restaurant,

PJ's Country House  

on Thursday nights to hear 

Wilson and John Brown -The Brother's Duo. 

They are such great guys and it can be so much fun. 

Very audience interactive. Average age: 73 

Last night two sons (and an assistant) 

were there with their Mom 

who was living at an Alzheimer facility nearby. 

She was all dressed up, 

knew every word to every song

 and danced her heart out. 

It was incredibly joyous! 

Miracles can happen through art. 

Collaging

There is surprisingly very little information out there about 

art projects for Alzheimer patients.

In the few sources I have found,

collaging is mentioned as an activity that they enjoy. 

We cut small holiday related pictures and words 

out of magazines and old holiday cards,

and had them pick their favorites to glue on heavy paper. 

Pat clearly loves little kids! 

We punched a hole in the top and added a ribbon 

so they could hang them on their door knobs. 

Evelyn told me she already decorated her room.

Then wrote,"smell the pine" on her card. 

Must have fun! 

Love that. 

Now this gal has her priorities straight! 

As you can imagine, 

the holidays are a very difficult time for these patients and their families. 

This may not do much to alleviate that 

but they all seemed to enjoy the project. 

I send many warm thoughts and prayers to 

everyone out there who may be dealing with this 

devastating disease. 

Stars of the Third Floor!

In conjunction with a holiday exhibition of residents' 

work at Linen Ponds next month,

we had the patients paint stars yesterday.

We traced a star shape on to 7 x 7 squares 

and drew in some random shapes for some of them to fill in. 

Some of them preferred to do a blank one.

Then we cut them out and will be attaching them to a 

green foam core board for the display!

"Stars of the Third Floor!"  

Again, there is such a wide range of abilities within the group,

it's hard to come up with things they all can (and will) do. 

For most, having shapes to color in is more comfortable than 

making something up. 

They all seem to enjoy just sitting quietly and working together.

At one point Mary Lou sang  

"Santa Clause is coming to Town"

to us.  

And she knew every word. 

Priceless. 

Who Doesn't Love Sunflowers?

Continuing with the "Fine Art" idea,

we talked about Vincent Van Gogh today. 

We looked at this and other samples of his work,

and noticed how he used small strokes of color, 

lots of swirls, and sometimes mixed his colors on the canvas. 

I brought in two vases of artificial sunflowers, 

only to find the center pieces on the tables were sunflowers! 

They were everywhere! 

I drew in some shapes for them

and they got right to it. 

Notice how she blended the colors in the vase. 

Pat just loves this! 

She had on a purple sweater today.

Another great one. 

It took awhile for Barbara to get going,

but once she did - she got right in to it. 

Look at the dots and swirls! 

It was a very small and quiet group today 

so this was just the right project. 

At one point, two of them were sleeping

and the rest were busy painting. 

No one was talking. 

Soft music was playing. 

It was magical.

Paul Klee Project

While googling work by Paul Klee, I ran across a great blog 

filled with projects for kids related to well known artists. 

(artprojectsforkids.org)

I copied this image to show the group 

by Paul Klee

Then had them fill in the shapes. 

 They got busy right away and seemed \
happy just to be there.

It wasn't long before the brush was going in to that coffee! 

Oops.  

 This gal is so earnest and works very hard!

Barbara loves to use "dots" 

This woman is almost completely blind,

yet she enjoyed blending these colors on top of each other. 

Again, I worry that having them color in shapes may be a bit 

childish and demeaning to them, 

but I'm not sure what else I can have them do. 

At least they get to learn about work by well known artists.

And they seem happy.  

Crazy Quilt Project

I took the Kandinsky circle pieces the group did last week 

and put them together to make this fun mural. 

The patients got a big kick out of this.  

Then Judith came up with the idea of having them make a "quilt".

I got this Crazy Quilt pattern off the internet to show them. 

then drew these random lines for them to color in. 

Put together, 

we made this happy little 

"Crazy Quilt!" 

I think the patients enjoyed being a part of a 

"group project". 

Note: I've been trying to find paper that is a little thicker than copy paper, 

that can hold up to the paint and still go through my printer. 

The gal at Office Max gave me Card Stock.

It is thicker and does go through the printer,

but it sucks up the paint and "pills".

They couldn't get any good color on there! 

Soothing Circles

I read somewhere that Wassily Kandinski used a lot of circles

 in his work because he felt they were "soothing to the soul."

Yesterday we showed the patients this image of one of his paintings

and had them color in the circles we drew for them.

Now, THIS they LOVE to do! 

There wasn't a sound in the room while they got right to work. 

 Here are some of the end results! 

Who knew? 

Circles ARE soothing to the soul! 

Back to the Drawing Board

In the past, I found that some of the patients like to paint 

directly on the image I've given them to "copy" or use as a reference. 

So for our first class after vacation, 

I printed out a series of simple landscapes on copy paper 

and clued them on to a thicker paper. 

We offered to outline the shapes for them to color in. 

 This was the sample I showed them,

 encouraging them to change the colors they saw.  

 In general, this didn't work as planned. 

Many of them were confused and 

didn't like the idea of putting paint over the photo. 

 Eleanor added a sun and some clouds though! 

This gal seemed to enjoy it.

This woman decided to make a summer scene into a fall scene. 

I think we will go back to the drawing board 

and this project is going in the "don't do this again" pile. 

Again, I have to remember that 

it's not so much the product that results from this class,

as much as it is the process of them sitting and working on something 

together.