Cooperative Painting

The three girls set-up to do a cooperative painting. We taped some paper to the table and then put small bits of tape on the paper. This was especially challenging for Addie and myself because as we worked adding tape, Edie worked removing tape. Once we were satisfied with our tape we each got a color paint and a brush. Then we played simon says with the paint. Simon says, "paint fast, paint circles, have the paint brush dance, pass your paint, ect." Addie was absolutley thrilled when we removed the tape. Edith on the other hand wandered away doing her own thing.

We all had fun and enjoyed making a project together. No fighting. Peaceful.

Thanks Artful Parent as usual.

A Huge Mess avoided....Paste Painting

I found a neat idea for paste painting in Family Fun magazine. I managed to avoid any disasters even though this involved acrylic paint (not washable) and I did not let Edith do this project. Edith did her own painting project at the same time. Supervising two different painting projects did nearly drive me insane, but we got some good results. I also did this project in a cardboard box lid on a old table cloth.

Step 1: Boil 3.75 cups of water with 0.5 cups of flour and then simmer for 8 minutes. Let cool.

Step 2: Pour paste into several bowls (that you don't care about) and add dollops of acrylic paint. I found a little went a long way. We had tons of paste left over at the end. This could make at least 20 projects.

Step 3: Using a foam brush spread a thick layer of paste over the entire piece of paper. It is important to use heavy paper. I used some scrapbooking cardstock and a cut up cheerio box.

Step 4: Scrap the paste off with various scrapers. I used the sides and top of the cheerio box and made notches in them for the scrapers. The magazine also recommended using old credit cards with notches cut.

Step 5: Wait forever for projects to dry.

Gold on purple on green paper.

Addie did really well, but had to be encouraged to keep working spreading the paste. I had to teach her to use a light touch. On her final piece she suggested using two colors. It was hard getting the second color on top of the first so she said, "I will just glop it on." That method worked well. I also would grab the project out of the box to dry before she had a chance to completely scrape off all the paste. Addie loves to get her fingers dirty so on the last project she could not resist the urge to just smear the paste all over.

I think this would be fun on a really big piece of poster board. That way more experimentation could be done with the scraping.

This one is mine. I quickly made one before cleaning up. This is red and orange on white paper. Lots of fun.