Posts Tagged ‘recreational art’

David was a newspaper photographer for most of his life. He is now has dementia and is also stuck using a wheelchair in a nursing home with dementia. We were painting on large pieces of cardboard with large brushes in one of our sessions. He painted a stormy sky with blues and grays. He stated he was finished, but then took a brush, dipped it in yellow paint and stroked in a lightening bolt. The surprise was that the lightning bolt turned green as soon as it went on top of the blue. He didn’t seem to be troubled by it. He turned it into a green cactus in the storm and when it dried, he painted pink flowers on it. He titled it “A Flowering Cactus in the Storm”

When painting recreationally without inhibition, the inner self naturally comes out. A large piece of card board was placed in front of Catherine with her choice of colors. Catherine’s art evolved like a well-rounded symphony…especially when she was doing it. Her brush, unintentionally, it seems, became a baton and she was waving the colors onto the painting rhythmically. When she got ahold of the pink, she was dabbing it on with an artistic flair. “A little here, and a little up here,” she said as she jabbed her brush in the upper left-hand corner. I found out later that Catherine’s long life was lived immersed in music. She played the marimba most of her life and taught and directed children’s choirs. That explains a lot!