Student Ellen engages in a variety of ways to communicate and express her creativity. She has her safe zones, which include the love of words, and drawing on paper with marker pens, to music. She is very prolific, and these are some of her “go to” activities when at the Parity day service.
However, Ellen was ready for more; we had done a lot of work on cause and effects and problem solving together and as she was keen to join the open day exhibition, she decided to challenge herself.
Ellen experiences real fears and anxiety around things that are wet, but she also has a love of dryers… putting the two together she used a hairdryer to control and manipulate the flow of liquid acrylic paint forming patterns on a canvas, whilst it was being turned to access every angle of the piece. She enjoyed this process very much, surprising herself how easy it was as the work dried instantly. Adding to it she spelled and glued down words on the surface to share her thoughts of the day. She was very happy with her work.
From that moment onwards, Ellen continued to challenge herself and her understanding of what is possible and comfortable and how to use the things she likes to create something new. Using the same technique, she did some painting with brush and colour on 3D objects as opposed to just paper, and exploring digital drawing on the Visilift (giant interactive screen) using a touch screen and pointer.
Though Ellen prefers marker pens and drawing, she is no longer anxious about wet paint because she knows there are ways to dry it.
