Nurture for the Future
This was what the boys got up to when they spent a weekend at grandma’s house…
This is a really easy activity. The boys used a potato and okra for their prints but you can also use other fruits and vegetables. The cut base of some Celery offers an easy way to create a lovely flower pattern. The following videos offers some terrific ideas on how to stamp with fruits and vegetables:
Happy stamping!
Childhood creativity leads to innovation in adulthood… so I decided it was time to dig out our canvases and paints again for a bit of abstract art fun…
G2 painted “Mountains at Sunset” – the title was given by me since that’s what it looks like to me. I was out of fresh canvases, so I let him re-use an old canvas with a picture I wasn’t particularly keen on, hence the visible lines and some colours at the edges from the previous painting…
G1 has always struggled with his abstract expression. His reluctance to mix his colours, I think, is likely linked to some internal compulsion that obhors getting dirty. It’s taken the arrival of a rather messy sibling to help him break down those obsessive tendencies but at least we’re making progress. For a while now I’ve been trying to encourage him to explore the colours and to forget about trying to “get it right”. As Ms Frizzle likes to say, “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” I suppose we’re making some headway because this was what he painted…
Now who remembers these? I haven’t seen one of these since I was a child…
Aristotle attended a birthday party recently and came home with one of these in his party bag. These “paint with water” books have special pages that turn to colour when you apply water with a brush to them.
These are great for those days when the kids want to paint but you don’t feel up to the cleaning up that you’re going to need to do after they are done.
Similar Variations:
Here are some other easy ways to paint with minimal mess:
Every now and then I get these flashes of inspiration and I just have to act on them. Like recently, I hatched a brilliant plan to cover up our balcony so the boys could spend a bit more time out there. The problem with apartment balconies these days are the restrictions applied so that you don’t change the exterior of the building too much. I figured that if I can’t permanently seal off the balcony, I can at least make it a little “safer” by wrapping the railings with plastic so little arms and legs can’t get trapped between the bars. It also makes it just that much harder to climb. Of course it’s not escape-proof and by no means can the children be left unattended, but at least you can be assured to get to your child before he manages to do anything too dangerous.
One of the first activities the boys got to was painting. There is such a lovely view from the balcony that the idea to paint must have been inspired by my daydreams of the boys painting a scenery. We live in an apartment so I figure this is about as close as they will ever get to painting “outdoors”. Since they were “outside”, I wasn’t too worried about the mess they might make – just in case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a lazy Mum who looks for short cuts wherever and whenever I can. Clearly, I underestimated just how much of a mess Hercules is capable of (and no, the picture below does not indicate just how much of a mess he made for me to clean up).
So when Aristotle asked me if they could paint again the next day, I promptly decided that the answer would be “no”. I’ll have to brace myself for another clean up session before we do this again. As it was, I just managed to finish washing the balcony before the monsoon thunder storm blew in.
Maybe next time they can just draw pictures on the blackboard with chalk… Or play bubbles with the bubble gun… Oh yes, we’re supposed to get to work on our botany project, too…
Just in case you’re wondering, that’s just clear plastic tablecloth available by the meter from ACE Hardware thrown over the balcony and secured with cable ties. If you have trouble getting the plastic tablecloth, another alternative is to use shade cloth. Of course, the colour of your shade cloth will affect the external aesthetics of your apartment so you might want to take that into consideration.
If you don’t mind spending the money for something a little better and “longer term”, you can probably find someone to attach some polycarbonate sheets (you can also search under these terms: acrylic, plexiglass or Lexan sheets) to your balcony railings.
The problem with plastic sheets and polycarbonate is that they cut off airflow so it can make your balcony feel stifling, especially if you don’t have a balcony fan. Materials like deck netting, bamboo fencing are suitable alternatives that are affordable and easy to DIY installation. If you’re local, you can find deck netting in ACE Hardware – I didn’t get it because they didn’t have “invisible colours”.
Then there are companies that make special balcony covers that you can buy locally (if you can find them) or online:
Finally, there are companies that specialise in retractable materials that you can use to cover your railings. I don’t know of any companies locally, but I’ll bet this is probably one of the more expensive railing covers you can get.
For more about childproofing your balcony, you should read “Childproofing Balconies and Decks” by Health Guidance.
Hercules likes to paint as well. Unfortunately, he is not nearly as disciplined as Aristotle when it comes to cleaning up after himself. He is also much more adept at creating a mess. Since our new shower is not quite so easy-clean-friendly (concrete walls instead of tiles), I have had to take extra measures to simplify my lazy art methods…
We’ve moved away from Crayola finger paints and watercolours which can both be quite tedious to wash off. Instead, we now use food dyes to make our own watercolours.
All you need are your three primary colours since you can mix them to get your secondary colours. Add just a little dye into a plastic jar with a lid, add water and Bob’s your uncle – watercolours. Whatever is left after painting – if any of it can still be reused – can be sealed and saved for another day. And if not, well, there’s always more of where that came from anyway. The colours won’t stain – which is great since all Hercules is really interested in is painting himself anyway (note: the paint on his body below were finger paints from Crayola).
Update: erm… I ought to make a correction, it won’t stain so long as you dilute the dye sufficiently. The second batch I made which was stronger made Hercules look like he was bruised blue and black and freaked out my SIL2 when she saw him.
The effect of food dye paints on paper is still good enough for a watercolour painting. If you find it is too light, all you need to do is add more dye to make the paint more concentrated.
And if your child decides to play scientist and mix all the colours together (which is more likely than not), fret not for all you need to do is just make a fresh batch and you’re ready to go again. Plus, it’s a lot more economical to get three bottles of food dye than a set of finger paints/watercolours. Not only is it cheaper, it also lasts longer.
Last but not least – it’s non-toxic. I think this is the best part. If your child gets thirsty and decides to drink the paint, you don’t need to dig out the bottle of ipecac syrup.
Gavin’s got a dress-up day coming up at school soon. The theme is Malaysia Day. Not knowing what to dress him up as, I pondered taking a trip to Central Market to buy him an “I Love Malaysia” t-shirt to wear. Then I had this brilliant idea – why don’t we paint a batik shirt with a Malaysia Day theme for the design?
As it turns out, Art Friend in The Gardens Midvalley actually does sell DIY batik kits. They have both the hot-wax batik kit and the quick-wax batik kit. Unfortunately, in my haste to purchase (as Gavin was running up and down the aisles in a hypo-frenzy and Gareth was getting cranky in the carrier), I took what I thought was the “bigger” kit which turned out to be a “silk screen” painting kit instead.
Luckily, while we were at Art Friend, I also bought some puffy paints with the plan of using them as a second t-shirt painting activity with Gavin. The puffy paints were only about RM13 if I remember correctly. Since I wasn’t sure about silk screen painting, I decided to paint our Malaysia Day t-shirt with the puffy paints instead. Here’s the final out-come:
And before you tell me what’s wrong with the flag, I know. I’m not an artist and this was one of those ideas that seemed a lot better in my head than in reality. Nevertheless, it’s a t-shirt with a Malaysia Theme so Gavin can still wear it for his dress up day.
In the picture above, the painting is pretty much done except that it needs to be heated so the paint puffs up. The instructions on the box says to use a hair dryer to blow hot air onto it. It must be 80 degrees celcius to be hot enough for the paint to puff up. I don’t know what kind of hair dryer they were talking about but mine wasn’t hot enough to do anything. Looks like we’re going to have to try ironing it. I will post pictures of the completed t-shirt design soon.
In the mean-time, if you would like to try puffy painting on a t-shirt, it is actually very simple. What you will need:
Method:
And you’re done!
Update: Here is the t-shirt after heat treatment
It didn’t puff up as much as I expected, but the puffed up paint looks less glossy and is not as sticky.
