Explore - The Sense of Touch

Remember when you were young and you wanted to touch everything, and make you friends touch stuff not knowing what it was? Today I have a project that will be fun for you, your family, your friends, and your sense of touch.

Create Tactile Boards

Collect materials based on texture - you could use things you find in nature, in or around you home, on a walk, anything will do, you just want it to have a variety of texture's to touch.

Glue you items to a piece of paper or cardboard - you could create a flip book, put it all on one big sheet, or do a separate sheet for each texture. Make sure you have a large enough surface of your textured item (if small use several) for touching.

That's it, you created a Tactile Board

Now invite people to close their eyes and guess what the different materials are. Let them touch the board with different body parts (such as their cheek or elbow). Notice the reaction you get to the different textures. This is a great way to experiment with new textures you want to add to your next project.

Other fun options

A Tactile Map

Collect items from different places that represents the area, and see if people can guess where they came from.

Tactile Reliefs

Instead of collecting textures, create texture reliefs, by press non-drying clay into different textures and create a board of your relief textures.

It's always fun to experiment with new ideas, new ideas can lead to new discoveries, and it can be a lot of fun too!

Anyone who gives this project a try send me a photo and a note telling me where your textures came from and the response they got, and I will post it on my blog with your name and info. Send the info to additionsstyleblog@gmail.com.

The source for this idea is from Artist Bruno Munari.