Cardboard Relief Prints

One of our first assignments for the year was a relief print using cardboard as a matrix. Students found or created a drawing that they taped to cardboard before I traced with an X-acto knife. Once there was an outline cut, students could wet the shapes they wanted to remove with a wet paint brush, and after a minute or so the glue would dissolve and they could peel back the top layer of cardboard to reveal all the corrugated bumps. Some students removed entire parts of the coardboard  to create three values (light, medium, and dark). 

Then students used a brayer and relief ink to evenly cover their cardboard with ink before placing a piece of paper on top and rubbing it thoroughly with their flat hands.

Once they had a print they could work back into it in several ways. It's important for the ink to be dry before adding layers so it doesn't smear around, but some students rubbed chalk pastel in parts to add a little color, while others used marker for bold colors. Some people made their prints on patterned paper to add a layer of interest without any post-print additions. I love how the cardboard texture adds such a distressed or vintage look to the images, and the areas of richer black make a bold impact. I wish I had experimented with this years ago, and may need to buy a gel plate to take the printmaking to the next level in the future.

 

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 get 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

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.

Eric Carle Style Christmas Art by Kids

I teach children with multiple complex needs who will probably never be able to draw complex images; but that doesn't mean they can't make art in the style of some of the greats. Eric Carle books are fun to read to these students because of the repetition makes it easy for them to make predictions. There's also fun features to their books with different size pages, holes for fingers to explore. They teach numbers, colors, animal names, time telling, days of the week, and of course the life cycle of a butterfly. But what I wanted to my students to learn most, was the process that Eric Carle used to create his pictures.

As a class painted big pieces of bulletin board paper, cut shapes out and collaged them to a piece of construction paper. 

Triangles, circles and rectangles could transform into a Christmas tree of ornaments.

Squares transformed into gifts with the help of colored masking tape turned ribbon and bows.

Once this concept played out, we used the concept of collage to make tactile wreathes from torn up scraps of tissue paper. Even students with no vision and little muscle control could tear, drop, and pat pieces into place.

Conference Art Contest

 I started submitting my student's artwork for the national Insights Art Contest in conjunction with the American Printing House for the Blind Conference. Every year, I had at least one or two win awards, which was pretty exciting for me because it meant getting to see kids fly on a plane for the first and possibly only time in their lives. They also rode on trains, escalators, elevators, and walked for miles using their canes in an unfamiliar city.

This year, there was no Insights Art Contest, but the Georgia Vision Teachers Educators Training (GVEST) conference committee offered me a venue to showcase my student's work at a state level. I'm always looking for new venues and chances to show off what they've been working on, so I set up a table, and put out a voting box for the hundreds of attendees to help choose a favorite.

The results are in and other than a cash prize for the first place, it was just certificates and pats on backs. I don't discount the value of a pat though. Students need a chance to be recognized even if it is just in front of their class. They need a chance to show off their work. This is a line on a resumé, and it's the 3rd college campus some of my students have shown their work in the past 2 years, which is something I would have loved to have done when I was in high school. Letting otherwise marginalized kids have a chance to shine makes my heart happy.

Tactile Caulk Painting project

To wrap up our relief sculpture unit, I had student's create tactile images by using caulk on canvas or wood. Many of them started with a drawing in marker or Wiki-Stix, if the students were totally blind. Then these were traced using caulk from the hardware store. Once the paint was dried, Under paintings were completed and by the 3rd day my students were able to paint work on the top layer of their painting.

Some students placed their canvas on the potter's wheel and squirted the caulk down onto the base. By touching the tip of the caulk gun to the surface, there was more of a mechanical feel, where as just squirting it from the air, felt more organic. The colors reflect the nature of the line. 

Some students used masonite (the back of scraps of bead board from a home improvement project to be specific), and used spray paint for their under painting.

The tactile quality allowed for my blind students to feel where to paint. Because this spider web was black, my student spray painted the entire image black, and then filled in the negative space with white, so the black lines would feel more like the foreground. She finger painted acrylic, dripping tiny strands as she went. There was not a single student who wasn't happy with their finished painting.

 

Little Kids Garden Painting

While cleaning out my attic, I came across a box of leis, which I bought for a luau themed party that I never threw. Rather than throwing it away, I brought it to school and had my multiple complex needs students use them for a mixed media art piece.

As a class, we talked about how you don't need a paint brush to paint, you could use a sponge, a mop or your fingers. Then we wadded up plastic leis and dipped them into green and yellow paint to pat on paper for a background color for our garden art. Before the paint was even dry, students picked colors of flowers from the silk flower leis and glued them to the surface. It's a quick project and a great lesson for kids to learn about mixed media art, the concept of background and foreground, and planting gardens.

Summer Camp Survivor Medialions & Fishing Field Trip

My summer program students each made a necklace with a medallion they made from clay. They rolled out slabs, cut shapes, pressed textures or drew pictures.

And after a day (we set them in the sun for a few hours), they had become bone dry and so I fired them in the kiln for them to paint. Because most people didn't spend an hour making their medalion, there was lots of time just to play with the clay. No summer should be without a little play.

Other parts of our summer program included, fire building, setting up a tent, swimming and making team flag. One of our field trips was to a fishing education center called, Go Fish, in Perry Georgia. Students were able to practice tying knots, and fish on fishing simulators.

Then they fed fish in the aquariums.

They even caught a few fish of their own! It was fun day, a fun week, and a great way to way to start summer!

Paracord Bracelets

Because the theme of our summer camp was, "Survivor," I decided to teach my students how to make paracord bracelets. Rope or cord is something that comes in handy in emergency situations, to build a tent, hang wet clothes to dry, repel, or create a sling or sprint when someone gets injured on the trail.

And a bonus is that macramé knots can be learned by my campers who are blind or at least visually impaired.

I bought a kit with enough cord and clasps for 50 kids and it ended up being less than a dollar per bracelet.

We started with a long cord, folded in half, with the fold pushed into the hole in the buckle/ clasp. The two ends are pulled through the looop.

 It should look like this, once cinched.

Then the ends are pushed through the hole ont he other side of the buckle. Try to keep the cords parallel  untwisted. You can measure your wrist to see how much to allow through, or you can just try it on your wrist and adjust it, leaving a little room for the extra cords. I left 7 inches in the loop for my bracelet.

And then you start the process of tying knots to hold the appropriate length in place. You'll want to make the knots alternating left and right so that it will lay flat. Otherwise, you'll get a twist, which is great for things like hemp necklaces with little seashells, but too bulky for this project.

I started on the right, making a letter "P" by having the right cord loop to the right side and overlapping the two cords in the middle. The left cord lays on top on the crossing down on the left side of the two center cords.

Then the left cord goes behind the two center cords and pushes up and out of the right loop in the letter "P."  This looks a little like and upside down pretzel.

Once each of the two cords are pulled snug and slide up, you'll make the same knot on the left side. A backward "P" looks like a number 4. You make the loop by placing the left cord across the center cords at a 90 degree angle. Then the right side goes over the top of that cord, behind the center cords and up and through the loop. Pull both sides until the knot is complete. It's basically a square knot. with the right over left, left over right, pattern, except that the knot is tied around the two center cords.

When you get to the end, you cut off all the extra cord and then singe the ends to keep from fraying.