Autism and Us - Filed under 'art'

A fun workshop with @startworld at Park Hyatt, Dubai

by Devina Divecha

Karan has been going to START's art workshops for a while now, and when we were told there was going to be one workshop held at Park Hyatt one weekend, we stuck our names down for it. It was the Eid weekend, and since I was free I decided to go with Karan (the usual workshops are on Tuesday's in the evening when I'm at work).

Zara Mahmood howing us what to do

It was a whole lot of fun, with the kids (mixed, this one. That is, both special needs kids and the neuro-typical ones [NTs]) working with roller brushes, paint, glue, cardboard and paper.

Brushes, glue and paint!

And boy did we get messy!

We had to cut patterns out with cardboard, stick them on a bigger piece of cardboard, then paint all over it with the roller brushes and then put a paper on top to make a patterned painting. I made the patterns, Karan did the sticking and painting.

...except for this time when he decided he wanted to cut a bit and took the scissors from me!

That's MY messy hand!

First up, I made a face, but since I let the paper stick on the cardboard for too long, it tore a bit and ended up looking like a skull more than anything else, haha.

Stages of the first painting

Next was a house, then a car, and then Karan's handprint! Check them out:

Thanks to START and Park Hyatt for a great morning out, and Zara Mahmood for working with the kids :)

Filed under // START art autism

Going for Karan's first exhibition

July 28, 2011, a Thursday evening saw myself, Mom and Karan heading down to Farjam Collection gallery at DIFC. Karan was at the START art camp, and the gallery was hosting an exhibition of all the work the kids had done. Alongside the works of the START kids, were the paintings of children who had attended the Art camp as well.

Here's a look at Karan's work that was on exhibit; he also did the painting splotches in the lower right hand corner in the fifth pic in this gallery.