[Nfb-krafters-korner] What a neat weekend!

[Dick Carlson]

Hello everyone!

 

It's good to be writing you again after a little break.  I have some neat
news to share with you.  It's all art and good!

 

As you recall, last weekend, I'd gotten everything ready to start that
collage with Willy.  I don't quite know what happened, but Saturday came and
went, and we were not able to do much.  A friend of the family came to
visit, and we spent a lot of the day with him.  Because we hadn't seen him,
it made sense for us to have spent the day with him.  We both took Willy to
the park for some of that day and then we had gone a few other places.

 

Well, Mr. Willy and I had some good fun this weekend and actually did quite
a bit of that collage in a couple of days!  He was somewhat surprised when I
told him that I also was going to do this without seeing and had a
blindfold.  He wondered why and then asked what would happen if he needed me
to look at something with my eyes.  He wasn't sure what we were going to do
with some things or how we were going to do them, but once I told him it
would be fun, he figured it would be OK.  He was surprised with when I told
him I wouldn't need my eyes for his project and that he was going to do a
lot of the work as well.

 

Oh man, we had everything from scraps of felt to pieces of different paper
and thicknesses of paper to beads to little smooth stones, to even a couple
of interesting feeling rocks to some shells to stickers and a few other
things.  I also had him cut a some strips of different colored ribbon and
paper.  We had a lot of different things we put on that.

 

Willy also had a breakthrough with the collage project that I think will be
good for future arts and crafts.  Willy was willing to use his hands for
everything.  I told him that using our hands would be the only real way we
could do the project.  It was great because he, like I, was feeling around
the area, looking for different places to put the various things.  We helped
one another out and suggested places to paste the items.  It gave him a
chance to explore and look around a bit, which was great!

 

So, how did we work around the issue of working with glue?  Well, we didn't
have much of a choice.  I didn't think that brushes would be the best for
him, or me for that matter.  So, He asked who was going to put the glue on
for him, and I told him he was going to do it all with his fingers.  I told
him that when we had tried this before, he did it with just his very finger
tip and was not very successful.  I told him we'd have to find a better way
to feel and spread the glue, so I suggested we use at least one finger.
Both of us did this, and you know, Willy didn't mind after getting into it.
At first he said that it was "gooey."  I told him it wouldn't be a big deal
because fingers and hands could be washed.  However, I figured we'd go at it
all the way, so I didn't have the soapy water after all.  I had kind of
forgotten that part anyway, and figured this could work to our advantage.  I
had a few paper towels, and those would be fine.  Both of us even ended up
using two fingers at times!

 

So, here's the shocker.  Somewhere in the project, we were doing well.
Willy was already used to doing things, and said that working with the gooey
stuff wasn't too bad after all.  In fact, at one point, he was the one who
asked for more glue because he was running out and wasn't getting enough for
using it.  He had fun, and he said he had fun!  He said he would like to do
more and was fine with getting his hands dirty.  I was being funny and
asking things like, "Even if we did an ooey, gooey project where we have to
get all of our hands dirty?"  He said OK!  How great!

 

Toward the end, when we were pretty much done with the collage, we even were
being silly and fingerpainted with the left-over glue on the paper.  I don't
know why, but I ended up putting both sets of fingers and so did he.  We
drew lines and I did things like drew my name and such.  It was fine.  

 

His collage will be shown to people, I'm sure.  He's proud!

 

Dick