The other day I was reading Martha's journal and was so inspired by her entry on limits and constraints in art and design. I have no background in art or design, so I haven't the foggiest clue how to "teach" my child about art, but Martha's approach made complete sense to me. And since I've been wanting to let the boys create more "art" for our home [something they can hold on to when they grow up and move out the house...what, did I just say that? sniff sniff], I thought this would be the perfect project. So after a quick trip to Kyobo for some canvases and paint, we were ready to go.
I whipped out a nice clean canvas and Baby J was so excited to get started. I was scrounging our recycling bins to find appropriate containers for the paint, but Baby J was getting antsy so I gave him a light grey paint to use while I looked for more containers.
As he started brushing the paint on to the canvas he asked me, "What am I?" And then answered himself by saying, "Oh, I'm a painter." Too cute. And without any prompting he started telling me that he was painting the road from Oregon to Korea [and what road would that be?].
I found another container for the darker grey paint.
I loved how he naturally moved to different sides of the canvas to work on his painting.
I finally found the last container for the green paint. This is his favorite color. Or it was. Now it is red.
After many more layers of paint he declared, "I'm finished".
I had presumed he wanted the painting hung in a landscape fashion, but he informed me it was supposed to be hung portrait style. Huh, who knew?
I just love the texture of the painting. This was such a fun project and I cannot wait to let Big J work on one this weekend. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with, I'm guessing a dinosaur or two will pop up. [Martha, bring on lesson #2!]
P.S. Thank you for all the Tokyo recommendations!! Wow.