Sumo has been painting rocks with his water paints for the past few days, so today we pulled out some of my oil paints for him to experiment with.
Together we set up a palette and some brushes outside. He was wearing his lovely new art smock he decorated himself with fabric pens and his big brothers old school shirt.
We had one brush for every colour.
But we soon discovered economy children's brushes do not work well with oils, so we switched to cotton buds, which worked soooo much better.
Soon the palette began to look like a cotton bud hedgehog as he mixed the oils to create new colours and shades.
He finally proclaimed he was finished, and went off to play with something else.
Sumo loves to mix, and mash, and create. His favourite play includes all three of these activities, so this was very much enjoyed and will be revisited frequently I think. The rocks are now permanently painted instead of being washed away whenever it rains now (at least they will be when they eventually finish drying). He loves the fact he is impacting on his own environment in a more permanent way. And I loved the fact he was so restrained with the oils - not something he has ever been with waterpaints.
Right, we are off to share this with Childhood 101 for we play Tuesdays. You'll find loads of other ideas and activities there too.
7 comments:
I'm turning 35yo this year and somewhere in my memory box is a rock I painted when I was around 10yo.
Rock painting rocks!
My kids at preschool love to paint rocks (and sticks) too. I've just discovered some great pens that write on rocks that I think I will have to buy - I think they were on the mindstretchers website.
Yes, we love to paint with cotton buds. They seem to be just the right size (and you can throw them away afterwards)!
We painted wit cotton buds during our week too (still yet to write about it!) and are experimenting with different kinds of paints in our house. As someone who avoided art classes through high school ( I did graphics, woodwork and sheetmetal instead, being practical and totally unartistically inclined!) using different kinds of paints is new to me too and it is loads of fun working out what materials work together and suit different forms of work.
Immy always asks for cotton buds to paint with and I love that they encourage such fine 'detail,' well, as detailed as a 2 year old can be :)
I also think I still have a rock that I had from childhood ...they make also nice pet rocks as a child ...
Oh, I liked the idea of painting rocks, and that it doesn't wash off. :) I think they'll make great paperweights!
Post a Comment