Valentine Hearts
Make watercolor hearts fun and easy. I used coffee filters and watercolor pour paints to facilitate this exciting project. It is the perfect activity for people with alzheimer's disease. This project took about 1 1/2 hours including clean up.
Supplies
Scissors
coffee filters (5) per person
Black Marker
Tacky glue
Pink and mint green construction paper ( the mint green contrast well with the pink hearts and is light enough to not over shadow the see through coffee filters). Make sure the green paper is slightly smaller than the pink so their is a nice pink border.
Copy Paper to put under hearts while painting
Liquid Watercolors
Paint brushes (size med/small to make sure they dont go too fast).
Plastic condiment cups with lids
Water marked H20 in cups not resembling drinking cups. One per person.
Directions
Put 5 coffee filter together, fold in half and make a black line with permanent marker (photo a). Make sure you change the size of the cut so that there are a variety of heart sizes.
Have sample art to put on each table
Pass out all supplies.
Place 2 sheets of white paper as a place mat for each person.
Have them cut on black line of coffee filter keeping filters together. They should end up with 5 hearts
Wait til all have cut before proceeding.
Since it is Valentines Day, have them give their hearts away. The object being that each person has a variety of heart sizes. You can help the process by trading hearts for them.
Have them pick one heart and place the others above the place mat. The will focus on one heart at a time.
Show them how to dip the brush in the paint and start painting. Encourage them to use more than one color on the each heart. When complete, move them to the next heart.
I noticed that when the hearts were lifted off the white paper, they left beautiful impressions. These could be cut out and used in the final art piece too.
When all the hearts are completed put their names on the white paper and put the hearts aside. Clean the tables, removing all paint, brushes and water.
Give each person glue, pink and green construction paper and a black marker.
Have them glue the smaller green paper over the larger pink construction paper (just a few dots).
Sign their names on bottom.
Return their hearts and have them glue them to the paper, overlapping in a pleasant arrangement.
Voila!!!
observations
Some seniors had difficulty seeing the white coffee filter against the white copy paper. I was conflicted to change and put colored paper under their hearts while working because the heart impressions on white paper were so beautiful.
Some seniors painted the hearts in one color. I felt it helped to encourage them to switch colors by removing one color and replacing it with another reminding them to switch.
Some seniors did not remember to rinse their brushes between color changes. Fortunately, I have a lot of volunteers to remind them.
Senior Work
