Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Painting Time

I talked a while ago about wanting to do more art with Little Cherub than I had with her sisters. I bought First Art: Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos by Mary Ann Kohl, read it ... and did nothing! Inspired by Melanie's post about painting with Bella, her just turned two year old, I decided the time to let Cherub loose with paint had arrived.Last autumn I picked up a child's easel for a song at a nearly-new sale, and stocked up on squeezy bottles of paint, brushes and paint pots from the Early Learning Centre. I decided to start Cherub with two colours - she chose red and blue. I put each colour in a matching pot, with a matching brush, but didn't give her any instructions beyond saying "here's a blue brush for the blue paint, and a red brush for the red paint".


She was thrilled to see the effect of the paint on the paper.


To begin with, she kept the colours quite separate. This was her first masterpiece ...


By the time she finished she was mixing the colours together, and experimenting with putting the brushes into different colours. We added yellow at her request (she currently calls all colours "blue" and pointed at the yellow asking for "more blue"!)


She spent around 40 minutes totally focused on painting, working mostly silently with occasional happy noises.


The first time she got paint on her hand she was a bit worried, then there was a bit more alarm at paint on her clothes (second-hand trousers and a cheap t-shirt I'm keeping for messy art) and when she missed the paper with the paint. After I reassured her she was fine.

Like Melanie, I'm going to aim for an art project every week.
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3 comments:

  1. Missus Wookie5:29 pm

    Love that intense concentration with "happy noises" and doesn't she look like her sisters..... She is growing up so fast!

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  2. Melanie Bettinelli3:04 am

    I like that easel.

    And I love the idea of giving her just the two colors. Fascinating to see how she explored them separately before she got into mixing. I wonder if I can do that now, though. I think that now she's had a bunch of colors it might be too late to go back.

    The one thing I have the hardest time with is stepping back to let Bella explore on her own. I want to paint too and yet I think I might get in the way.

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  3. Bonnie Way aka the Koala Mom4:40 am

    That's so cute. I can't wait until Sunshine (3 months old) is old enough to do things like that with her. Though right now it's exciting enough that she smiles at me and likes standing up while I hold her. :)

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