Inspired residents get creative for International Dot Day at St George’s Court
St George’s Court residents celebrated International Dot Day recently which inspired an art session at the care home. The aim of this day is to celebrate creativity, courage, and collaboration in art. It's also a great way to harbour self-expression among residents, which is such an important aspect of choosing activities for them.
International Dot Day can be traced back to September 15th, 2009. This is when a schoolteacher named Terry Shay brought a book entitled “The Dot” by Peter H. Reynolds into his class and introduced it to one of his students. The Dot is a book about a teacher who encourages a doubting student to trust in her own talents and to be brave enough to make her mark on the world. The student started off by making a small dot on a piece of paper which lead her onto a journey of self-discovery and cooperation. People have since used this day to celebrate drawing, painting and all forms of creative art outlets as a result.
For the morning session, Lifestyle Coordinator Lyndsey introduced the art of American artist Roy Liechtenstein to the residents. His techniques, which often involved the use of stencils, sought to bring the look and feel of commercial printing processes to his work. Through the use of primary colours, thick outlines, and Ben Day dots, Lichtenstein endeavoured to make his works appear machine-made. 'Lichtenstein restricted his paint colours to imitate the four colours of printer’s inks'. The residents were intrigued as Lindsey told them about his influential use of Ben Day dots; a system devised to increase the tonal range in commercial printing through a dot screen method.
Lindsey had copied a variety of black and white Liechtenstein pop art for the residents to colour and shade using pens, paint, cotton buds and bottle corks. Betty, who lives at the home and is visually impaired, felt the cork bottles, cotton buds and then felt the pictures to describe what had been placed in front of her. With guidance, Betty said she enjoyed taking part and said that she found it to be a “very interesting way to make pictures from dots.”
International Dot Day was a huge success at St George’ Court, as the residents were able to try a new form and implement their own take on it as part of their art session. The residents are already looking forward to their next arty session with Lindsey.