Art in Progress

Recently, I discovered that the little girl loves to colour and paint and of course that was such a lovely surprise. We had started with fingerpainting when she was younger but then came a point when she had grown icky of paint. She would touch it for a while, then she would keep asking me to wash off the paint. I had heard of children who loved to paint when they were younger then outgrew it and I was sad if she was one of them.

Finger, foot and sponge painting

Then one day, we went to Za's place for a playdate. One of the things that the kids did was to paint with brushes. It was then that I had an epiphany that if I were to buy brushes for her, then the little girl could still paint without having to touch the paint. Why didn't I think of that earlier?? Duh!

Art corner at Za's house

And so I bought those jumbo brushes from Melissa & Doug (You can get them with free shipping) and the rest, as they say, was history. The first time she painted with brushes, she went on and on and asked for more paint. After a while, she wanted to hold the paint and so she held the paint in a plastic container with one hand and painted with the other. She looked like a little artist! Sorry, this mummy gets excited quite easily. And of course, my choice of canvas was the bathroom wall so that I could wash off the mess easily.

Painting with brushes for the first time

But after a few weeks, I felt that all that art should not go to waste and I felt like keeping her masterpieces. It felt harder and harder to wash off her artwork on the bathroom walls and so I decided to print colouring pages for her. She could paint them, or colour them with crayons, and then I could keep them.

 Coloured with crayons (Done by her except for the sealion's ball)

Coloured with chalk (I smeared the chalk for the butterfly after she had coloured it to even out the colour)

"Bloodied" bugs as her choice of paint for the day was mostly red, with a little bit of green

Those are the raw pieces that were coloured and painted by her. I thought we could do some craft on those pieces before displaying them and so out came my white glue, craft punches, coloured papers, and whatever else that were in my craft box. And here's the outcome after I had cut and pasted them onto coloured papers, and decorated the pieces with the little girl.

Paint with craft punch flowers

Paint with self-adhesive foam sailing boats

Crayon with craft punch stars and pipe cleaner for the snail (Our version of The Snail and The Whale)

Paint with craft punch maple leaves

Paint with stickers

Chalk with self-adhesive foam flowers 

Chalk with self-adhesive foam butterflies and paper cut-outs 

Those are the finished products so far from our Marine and Bugs themes. I have a few more pieces that are waiting to be decorated but I shall keep them for lazy stay-in days with the little girl.