SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Sunday 29 August 2010

All in a week's work, or two

Paintings by SB, August 2010

Laddo is not a laddo anymore, he is a young man

He is also becoming more independent when it comes to painting. When we met in August he wanted to paint scenes from his recent holiday in Sweden and every other afternoon he turned up with a new bright idea.

The colours of the paints he chose to use were much more vibrant than they have been for quite some time. He was absolutely sure about what he wanted to paint and how I should help him to mix the colours, adding a little bit of blue, white or red, until he said Stop.

At the end of ten days working together, days that included a daily two-five kilometre-long walk, cooking, cleaning, riding buses alone and other conductive activities, as well as painting, my client said:

"I did not produce many paintings these past two weeks".

When we put the pictures all together on the floor, as seen above, he realised that six paintings in ten days is really not so bad for someone who six years ago was still having difficulties holding a paint brush steady between his fingers. Afterwards, another two, smaller ones were produced as presents for his workshop friends. Eight paintings in ten days, that is something that I can only dream of managing myself!

The sailing boat in the top left is a commision for a man who owns a trip-boat on a local lake. The painting will hang on the boat, in its restaurant. The rest of the paintings, scenes from this year's holiday, will add to the collection that my client is building up for his next exhibition, the one that we hope will take place at the beiginning of next year at the sheltered workshop where he works. We hope that it will be in the exhibition space at the Café Sunshine!

Well done grown-up "Laddo" for a very productive ten days!

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