Aim & Objectives
Coffee painting has its own style and elegance. With different shades of a single color, wonderful paintings can be created. I take coffee painting classes for children having Autism. Many children with autism have sensory issues. Some are hypo-sensitive to certain smells like coffee i.e they have a special fascination towards this smell. My aim was to make use of this special interest of them and divert them to meaningful activities like painting. Many of them lack the drawing skill due to their poor muscle tone. So I thought of using simple steps, which does not involve much drawing skill, to create wonderful art works. Many children fail to paint within the outline, so using a stencil or an alternative shapes will be helpful to paint various designs. Also, the use of glue -“fevicol”, which gives a three dimensional effect to the painting, increased both the enthusiasm of the children and the beauty of the painting.
Learning Outcomes
The aroma of coffee is a weakness to many children, who are hyper-sensitive to smell. Many special need
children are denied the painting experience just because they are not good in drawing or painting within boundaries. The use of paper stencils for creating mountains helped them paint the mountain ranges beautifully. Children could learn how to increase/decrease the coffee shades by adding coffee powder or water. The squeezing of fevicol is very good exercise for increasing fine motor ability of the fingers. Many liked the smell of fevicol too. In this lesson, different layers needed to be dried properly and while doing this, the children learnt to wait too, though initially they showed some restlessness. Children liked the feeling they got while rubbing over dried fevicol. The final outcome made them very happy and competent.
Process for the Lesson
When I started painting I loved the aroma of coffee When I started painting I loved the aroma of coffee very much. I was sure that my children, who are hypo sensitive to smell, will definitely like this. Many of them
were using brushes for the first time. Till then they were deprived of the painting art as they lacked drawing ability. Or, many did only abstract painting. Then I thought if I introduce coffee painting with simple and easy steps, they will be interested in painting. The aroma of coffee glued them to the painting. Then, I wanted to try sceneries, which won’t require much drawing skills. So I made stencils for mountains. Then I tried multiple layers of mountains, varying the coffee shades a bit. They could understand the concept that nearer objects will be darker and far away objects will be lighter in color. They also learnt how to adjust the amount of coffee and water to create different shades of coffee. Squeezing fevicol was also a therapy process for them. The designs that the fevicol created was too good. Their texture on drying was also
soothing to children. They loved painting over the dried fevicol. Some even used fingers to paint. As coffee is safe, it was okay even if the children use fingers or even lick it. The coffee paint is brush friendly also. Thus the children started playing with the various shades of coffee.
The main advantage is that this aroma of coffee is very soothing. Children sit calmly, even for longer time than usual. This coffee art is helpful in regulating the children with attention problem and even reducing their anxiety level. In such a fun and therapeutic way, we created mountain ranges and a beautiful river, with a nice 3 dimensional view.
The main advantage is that this aroma of coffee is very soothing. Children sit calmly, even for longer time than usual. This coffee art is helpful in regulating the children with attention problem and even reducing their anxiety level. In such a fun and therapeutic way, we created mountain ranges and a beautiful river, with a nice 3 dimensional view.
