Residents of Orchard House Care Home have been participating in an art project with Year 2 children from Broadlea Primary School in Lake.
As part of their Personal Development Learning, the collaboration gave the students a purposeful reason to learn how to paint portraits. The residents were only too happy to help and had their head and shoulders photographed ready to send to the children.
The children enjoyed looking at other portrait artists, then learnt to draw and paint facial features. They spent many weeks studying the photos of the residents and then replicating them.
To make them extra special, the children wrote a little note to wish the residents Happy New Year.
Emily McCarty, Year 2 teacher, said:
“The children have had many discussions about how Covid has affected the elderly.
“The children were really excited to do something nice for the residents.”
The residents were so pleased to receive their portraits and eager to share them with each other and with staff. Some put them up on their wall straight away, others spent a long while studying them intently, but all were so delighted.
General Manager, Kim Fleming, said:
“We are so grateful to the students of Broadlea Primary for their delightful portraits, I know that the residents were thrilled.
“We are thankful to the school for creating a way that our residents can interact with the community, which is something we are always looking for.
“Residents particularly find intergenerational projects fulfilling.”
Broadlea’s Art coordinator, Ali Bonnick, said:
“It was lovely to make links with our local community and show how art can have a real purpose, like being used to reach out to others and make them smile, rather than just being something made in a classroom and taken home.
“Hopefully this has allowed pupils to realise that art has an important place in the world and how powerful its effect can be.”
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