The Easter Bunny!

05/24/2014

From February right thought to April I did various Easter related Art Projects with the residents in care homes. Two of the Art Projects in particular involved making a giant Easter Bunny out of recycled materials covered in paper mache!

Both Easter Bunny ‘s were built entirely out of recycled materials including boxes, cardboard, plastic packaging and bottles. Masking tape is important in binding all the different recycled materials together to build the sculpture. Once the sculpture has been built and was sturdy and secure we then started to cover the entire structure with 2/3 layers of paper mache (See image below).

Once the Easter Bunny had been covered in paper mache, dried thoroughly and primed it was time for me and the resident’s to give him some colour. As you can see in the image below we decided to paint him a mousey brown colour whilst tailoring a nice jacket bought from the charity shop for him. To secure the jacket we used drawing pins and then a staple gun to fix it in place.

Easter Bunny - Primmed, painted and with fitted jacket.

After 4/5 Art Sessions we had finally completed the Easter Bunny in time for Easter. We added lots of details using a mixture of acrylic paints to his face. We used some cotton wool buds for his ears , white felt for his belly and pipe cleaners for his whiskers. And to finish him off a paper daffodil in his pocket! The finished sculpture was about 3.5ft tall!

Easter Bunny - finished display at care home.

As you can see he is surrounded by Easter eggs (made and painted by the residents in the Art Sessions) and some little lambs making a lovely Easter display for all the residents and visitors to the care home! 🙂

Easter Bunny - close up

Easter Bunny & CM founder James Cropper

More Art Projects to come from myself and Creative Minds. Thank you for reading! 🙂

James.

Our feature in the Surrey Advertiser!

03/10/2014

We are proud to announce that Creative Minds has been featured in not 1 but 2 of the local Surrey Papers at the end of February!!

Here’s one of our features in the Surrey Advertiser with myself and two of the lovely elderly residents that I work with from Avery’s Silvermere Care Home! As you can see they’re holding their framed pastel landscapes that were produced in one of the Art Sessions held at Silvermere!

I had a long telephone interview with Fergus the Community News Editor at the Surrey Advertiser about my previous experiences, Creative Minds and working with the elderly and people with learning disabilities. I told Fergus… “The aim of the sessions is to provide exciting and engaging activities which are good for the health and well-being of the residents by stimulating their minds in a relaxed atmosphere with no pressure”.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE BELOW…

Creative Minds feature in the Surrey Advertiser.

 

Here is another feature this time in the Elmbridge Guardian which talks more specifically about the Art Sessions at Silvermere in Cobham.

It says – “The art sessions allow residents to express themselves in a calm and engaging atmosphere and allows residents with dementia to reconnect with previous experiences and memories.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE BELOW…

Creative Minds in the Surrey Advertiser & Elmbridge Guardian.

 

We were very excited to be featured in two of Surrey’s prominent newspapers and its some great initial publicity for Creative Minds. This is the first but it definitely wont be the last, more features and articles to come folks!

Thanks for reading!

James.