Cloud 9: Making Clouds from Paper Lanterns

I never imagined how easy it would be to make home-made clouds that look like the real thing.

You can make one in a couple of hours. I used a hot glue gun with large hot glue sticks, and attached about 4 round paper lanterns together. You can cut small holes on either side if you want them to fit together a little more snuggly and have a large whole between each chamber so that you can easily string lights inside the entire cloud. But I like to keep them a little less like one blob and more like separate billows of the same cloud. I was able to poke my finger through the sides after they were glued. Use lots of glue in a circle about the circumference of an apple, and then old them together until the glue cools.

Then I put more circles of hot glue on one lantern on a time and held a handful of Poly-fil against the glue spots. bit by bit, you cover the cloud, going back to check on bald spots. I also used quilt batting to cover the wholes in the bottom and some of the cracks before adding Poly-fil stuffing to the top of the batting. The stuffing sticks better to the paper lantern than the batting though. Just kind of pull it over the holes to hide the fact that these are really lanterns. I made sure that the hanging loops were at the top, and plan on using fishing line to hang it from the ceiling for our Enchantment Under the Stars prom. I have some LED lights to help them glow pink or purple. The more varied the sizes of lanterns the better. Keep the small ones on top and sides. 

It takes about 10 large glue sticks and a little more than half a pound of Polyfil for one cloud. I made about six and still half half of my 13.5 box of stuffing left. (It was $35 a box).

Whether you are decorating a bedroom, or for baby shower or bridal shower. These clouds can create a really special ambiance that makes you feel like you are on cloud 9!

 

Painting a Night Sky Back Drop

We've got some fun events coming up at my school. A spring concert, and a prom, with the theme: Enchantment under the stars. A starry & cloudy night sky killed two birds with one stone, just like last year when the prom theme was Enchanted Forrest, and the spring program was Into the Woods. I love working smarter, so I can work harder on other projects. We started with a blue background, starting with the darkest blue at the top, and adding lighter blue to the paint pan, until it was a sky blue at the bottom. A couple of my students got a kick out of giving our stars of the silver screen (from our Hooray for Hollywood prom) some wacky features during the process.

As soon as that dried, I had two more students add the stars. The more the better. They wanted to space them all evenly, so I had to remind them to think in clusters and make some bigger than the others. Most of the stars were 6-8 feet off the ground so we tilted the sets down on a chair to make it more accessible.

When it comes to making clouds, it's easy to over-do it. Start with darker values. Just subtly shift the value from the background. And I used a brush that was about 4 inches wide to start.  Then I started adding lighter colors until there was some areas of white, usually around the edges and tops of clouds using a one inch brush. It would make more sense to have a moon reflecting light back onto the clouds, but I'm saving a big moon for another photo op. I like to use an almost dry brush and scrub it on in circular motions so that it doesn't come off as a flat, coloring-book-style cloud. It didn't take long, and it is gratifying to knock out what is essentially a 32 foot mural in a day.

 

Social Awareness Stop Motion Project

 After finishing our fun class project: Monsters on the Town, I proposed we do something more personal. I asked students questions: What is love? What is the meaning of life? What's the secret of happiness? The big concept questions answered by kids. Everyone was self-conscious and I didn't very interesting responses. Even when I asked what it was like being blind, some didn't know how to respond. But once I got them talking about what they wished sighted people knew about them, they opened up.

When people find out I work out I work with blind students, they start talking about sign language. Yes, I took American Sign Language in college, but I don't use it at work. The students can't see. The students complain about the same misconception. People confuse blindness for deafness and raise their voices or assume they speak sign language.

My students wish everyone understood that blindness is a spectrum, that you can have vision and lose it. They want to know when you enter a room and when you leave a room. Don't try to quiz them on your voice; let them know who you are.

They get tired of hearing phrases like "here" when they're being handed something, and "over there" when they're trying to find something. They can't see you pointing. We used stop motion animation with the camera from the top much of the time--just moving flat pieces of craft foam and felt on a piece of paper.

Other times we used claymation figures with the camera in the front. But hopefully, it all came together in a coherent way that helps my students self-advocate. I want them to learn that art can be used for a good purpose to edify and inform. What We Wish Sighted People Knew. 

Check it out using the following link: https://youtu.be/fqI1pu4BvB0

Monster Mania

If you want students to learn how to think creatively, the secret is giving set boundaries, and lots of tools for students to explore possibilities within those boundaries. For my monster assignment, students had access to bins and bins of supplies: pipe cleaners, yarn, feathers, wood, cardboard, and more. 

Too many options feels overwhelming and can lead to paralysis, so it's best to walk them through the process. You can dig through supplies that lead to inspiration. I  might find a discarded nest ornament, and say, I wonder if this could be used as a baby carriage since eggs are basically eggs. What do we have that could make wheels? What would a birdlike monster look like? Does it have to have wings? What would help us hint at a bird without it becoming a bird?  It's also good to start with the idea first: I want a skate boarding cyclops. I'm going to sketch it out and then try to find the materials needed to make it. Give each creature a name and personality.

For little kids and for those starting out, a basic form is all it takes to get going. A toilet paper tube, or a dixie cup, might be the basis for some legless creature. Think about colors and surface textures: foam, felt, tape, or tissue paper can all help transform the household item to the point where students want to add tentacles or antennae. You know you are doing something right when lots of laughter is part of the process. This project was just the beginning, but it was a great way to start on our film making experience.

 

Creature Feature: Monsters on the Town (Stop Motion Animated Movie)

 

After my students created their monsters, they created sets to serve as a backdrop for our stop motion ovie. It's a creature feature, but rather than be bogged down with plot, we decided to just parade our little guys through various neighborhoods. 

We used discarded shipboard and painted the stripes. Students then used paint pens to make store fronts, apartment buildings, and town houses. For my students who were totally blind, they glued doors, windows, stairs, bricks, stones, and siding from cut mat board. There was a lot of glue on a lot of fingers, but it was a great way to make a neighborhood that felt less flat.

One student who is especially interested in architecture did some research and created a street with the type of home you'd find in the French Quarter of New Orleans near a brownstone you'd find in New York City. We created trees and streetlights from coat pegs, and topiaries from wooden knobs in new boxes. 

Of course we had to create white canes for our creatures to use on the sidewalk in front of a school for the Blind. Some of my students who have zero vision were able to help push the monsters across a set one tiny movement at a time, others could push the button to take a picture, and others could count to make sure we had enough pictures to complete a scene. We tried to give each scene about 10 seconds of air time, which at 12 frames per second, amounts to 120 pictures. If we went too fast or too slow, or if it just looked bad, we'd start over for that scene. The song for our monster movie was Low Rider by War, and we filled that whole funky soundtrack with about 2,300 frames. Filming only took a few days and we were all tickled with the results. Check it out using the link below:

https://youtu.be/fqI1pu4BvB0

ELLE Field Trip and Virtual Artist's Visit

 whose medium is photography. Her exhibit (Jan-Feb 2026) at the Wesleyan Leadership lab is a collection of three bodies of her work.  I was so happy when the Wesleyan Leadership Lab director, Alexis Gregg invited my students and I to come see the show, because one room was set apart especially for people with visual impairments, which is right up our alley.

We couldn't make our schedules work to be there at the same time as the artist, but Aleixis did a great job in audio describing pieces like the banners of portraits of black women portraying large monuments in American history, such as liberty and justice, with slave crops, such as tobacco and cotton being used as props.

 

She also lead a discussion on resilience as we learned about a series of photographs for people who moved to a new place and learned a new culture where they were a minority.

But the most meaningful part of the trip was getting to explore the embossed paper images and the Brailled descriptions. There was also a soundscape of familiar noises such as a beep kickball, which is used in a modified version of baseball.

There were glass light boxes with images of faces which were cyanotypes. These also had Braille dots on the textured glass.

The following day, we had a zoom call to get to talk to the artist. She had more questions for them they they did for her, but the discussion was meaningful and the students were left feeling inspired and seen. Stephanie Elle is a talented artist who works notices the marginalized and gives them a place at the table in the art world.

 

2025 Winter Student Art show

Our December student art exhibit was a hands-on experience since most of the visitors were blind. It's pretty rare to to to an gallery or museum where touching the art is allowed, much less encouraged. Teaching Art at the Academy for the Blind has taught me that for these kids, "you see with your hands, not with your eyes," and so most of the assignments from this semester were relief sculptures for tactile image projects.

We had a table in the middle of the room for ceramics items and hand-bound books, just waiting to be handled. Text was often in Braille, and some of the images were pop-up.

2D images on the walls and easels were all within arm's reach.

We offered a rotating schedule for students to come and visit in their time slot during a 2 hour reception on Thursday, and then parents came on Friday after the school concert.  

Students helped curate the exhibit, deciding what pieces should go in, how they should be arranged, and making Brailled the name tags.

 

Although it was an exhibition and not a sale, a lot of students were able to sell their work to teachers and parents. It was so gratifying for them to know that their work had value and was appreciated by discerning adults.

Ultimately, talents are meant to be shared, and you don't have to wait until you're a master to start sharing. I love that my students can shine at their current ability level, and because shining feels so good, I have every confidence that they'll keep growing to the next level.