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.