Through the Eyes of a Beginner

Helping seniors learn to paint

Last week I began volunteering at an assisted living center near my home. They have tons of activities but only one activity director who relies on volunteers – a lot. When I first met the director, she handed me an 11"x17" calendar showing all the programs and asked if I saw anything that caught my interest.

I was overwhelmed and said, "Well, I am an artist if that helps." Bingo! Her art class was about to be cancelled due to her lack of time, so now I am to be there Tuesday afternoons to help people enjoy painting.

The residents at the assisted living center where I volunteer use
small trays of watercolor like the ones we used in elementary school.

Of the five ladies that showed up, one just wanted to watch, one was a fairly accomplished painter, one was really excited about learning to paint better, another wanted to paint inside the lines on a pre-printed drawing and the last was a total beginner.

The beginner had a hard time seeing, but with the ONLY big brush we had and a little guidance, she painted an impressionistic painting of a robin sitting on a golden branch of flowers.

Since she had no previous knowledge, she had no reason to question what I told her. I asked her to look at the photo she was working from, find the big shapes, notice how dark or light they looked to her and put the paint on the paper to show that.

Since her eyesight was poor, she asked me what color would work best. When she was unsure about what to do with the background, I told her to define the shape of the bird by painting around him with the color of the background.

I was pretty excited about what she was able to create with no past experience in painting and an open mind. She had already learned about values, colors and negative shapes in less than an hour even though she doesn't realize that yet!

I hope all the ladies come back next week and bring a friend. But we really do need more paint and some BIGGER brushes!

The activity director told me I could request more supplies–
one order of brushes and supersize that please!