Nov.05. 07
Another 4 hour set at CE2. Gave Richard an almost black painting he has worked on before, to rework it, this time with a ¼ inch brush and white acrylic paint. He is building up layers now. Johanna wasn’t at the center today.
Nov.19.07
I gave Richard today a 3 inches wide brush; this time I wanted him to fill up the paper with black color as much as possible. No matter how wide the brush, he always manages to hold it so that the thin side of the brush touches the surface of the paper. That way it took him 4 hours to almost fill up the sheet with black paint. It’s fun to work with him.
Johanna wanted to do another SONG-LINE. I handed her as before a brush, black color and a sheet of paper and asked her to do more lines this time. She did five lines and then started to sing and drum on top of them. The consistency of the color didn’t really work out this time to spread the color through drumming. The strokes where to dry to let the drumsticks pick up some of the paint to leave drum-dots on the white unpainted parts of the sheet. She had fun anyway and the lines she drew looked good as they where.
Nov.25.07
Today I did some tactile experiments with Johanna and one SONG-LINE. I gave her some cardboard pieces; acrylic based modeling paste, spatulas and a color she chose. She wanted green, I asked her why and she simply answered that green is her favorite color. I wonder what she as a fully blind person associates with colors: a person who can’t see light or darkness at all. I need to ask her more about what colors mean to her. I did put some gloves on her, and let her play with the material spreading and mixing it with her hands/gloves and the spatulas. After a while the gloves, paint and cardboard became one, the gloves stuck on the painting and she just slipped out of them. It looked great; I decided to let it dry. On a next piece of cardboard I let her smear the material and then she engraved the paste like surface with a knitting needle. She drew relief like circles and spirals on it. After she finished the piece she wanted to do another SONG-LINE. I told her to sing a short version of a song, but since she loves singing so much she performed the full version.
Richard fell to day, it seemed as if he lost his balance while feeling his way through space and objects. He stood up unharmed, moved a few steps with his arms stretched out feeling for his chair. As soon as he got back on to his chair and easel, he picked up the brush and started painting again a black blob on a white sheet of paper; as if nothing had happened. I was really glad he didn’t hurt himself. When he paints he sometimes has his eyes closed while painting. It looks as if he would be in a dreamy half asleep mode his hand holding the brush frozen on the paper. I haven’t heard him saying more then the three words, which are “hi”, “bye” and “yeah”. Richard is a very nice guy. He is always calm, friendly, controlled and smiles a lot. He understands pretty well what one says to him according to the circumstances he acts or waits. If I tell him that I’m going to turn the paper for him he holds in his movement and waits till I tell him that all is set and he can continue painting.
