Visually impaired try their hand at tactile painting

Banjara Hills: The visually impaired now have a chance to get creative, thanks to tactile painting. By touching the object in the painting, one gets an idea of what the painting is about.

1. For tactile painting, the students have to paint by touch
2. They take the help of volunteers in using adhesive etc

S Pallavi, touching her painting, said, "From garden to garden, a butterfly wanders in search of a sweet flower. This painting depicts a butterfly's delight upon finding its colourful companion."

"My painting is a reminder to those who are away that their home awaits them no matter where they are. As dusk takes over, the birds of the air return to their nest. Similarly, a boat sails back to a shore finally after a long voyage," said Sunil Rathod who painted, 'Sailing home.'

Speaking to The Hans India about how the artists with vision loss are trained for painting, TV Aishwarya, rehabilitation counsellor at IVR, said, "Even before the exhibition organised on Monday, we had three sessions for the students to learn.

The first session was organised on May 20, which was a theory session for the students who wanted to participate in the exhibition. The students in this session were briefed on the meaning of each colour.

For the students to understand the meaning of each colour, we associated colours with some meaning, such as pink could be unconditional love, yellow could be happiness and red could be anger, for them to make some sense about each colour."

"I have made a colour reference, in which I have mentioned different elements of nature, such as water and sky with blue colour and grass with light green colour, so that they have an idea about how it will look," Aishwarya added.

In tactile painting, students are asked to use beads and aluminium foil. They are also taught how to shape aluminium foil and cover it with a plain white sheet. "The next and the last session was exhibition on canvas.

The students were trained to paint the background with plain colours. To make the difference between sky and the grass, I asked the students to take a thick garbage bag and if they wanted to save one third of the canvas for the grass or the bottom part of the canvas and the two third above is the sky.

If they were painting the grass, they had to cover two-third of the canvas with the bag and stick the bag behind the canvas so that the painting does not go beyond the above side," Aishwarya said.

Here, they take the help of the volunteers. Once the lower part is dried, the volunteers help in removing the trash bag and then the artists paint the upper part. For the tactile painting, the students have to paint with fingers.

The final help the students receive from the volunteers is in using an adhesive, as it is strong glue. The volunteers also show them the position where the artists want to stick the objects.

By Tejal Sinha