Six weeks at The Grove is drawing to an end

This Friday is our last session at The Grove Residential Home in Solihull.  I am quite amazed at how quickly the weeks have gone by.  Once again Nat has assisted throughout and Amy has joined us a couple of times.  The Activity Leader, Ros has been a star, very supportive and enthusiastic.  Activities have included drawing and painting, then we moved into clay, some very impressive paper roses - well it was around Valentine's Day! and then some lovely birds which involved tissue, glue and feathers.  Martin arrived on his old motor bike and had three very interested residents chat and look at it.  They had all been involved with bikes in the past so it bought back many happy memories, two ladies and one gentleman - impressive! 
During the last couple of months Nick and Victoria have also led art sessions at two day centres and Kathryn has been visiting Rayner House, so it's been a busy time.  Richard our photographer has taken lots of photos in each of the centres and they will be posted on the website very soon.

Here is one of them to wet your appetite!
www.sustainingthepersonwithin.org.uk

Going abstract

I've always enjoyed exploring abstract elements in a painting. Recently I have had two requests for an abstract painting, 2 ft by 5 ft - two completely different people, how extraordinary!  I decided God must be telling me something, so we set about preparing a canvas and I began my painting, just in case I was asked again!  The experience was very exciting but may I say it is not as easy as it looks.  I began with red, not that surprising to anyone who knows me, moved into black and then magenta and gold. . .   Quite often I put paint on directly from the tube. Tonking and rollering it proved interesting and there were lots of happy accidents that were hard to reproduce, if not impossible.  All the usual feelings surfaced, such as when parts became a bit too precious - a hopeless situation that has to be ignored. Curiously it has given me lots of ideas for other paintings, but I think I'll find a home for this one first!