Tag: washable paint

Sunday Snapshots (of painted pumpkins)

Marie Haigh2 Comments

Yesterday, Elly and I painted the two pumpkins she had picked out last week.

After drawing a happy face on the first pumpkin, Elly drew a line from the eye to the top of the pumpkin and announced that it was a pirate. Dan was so proud.

The paint is already flaking off because I insisted that we use Crayola washable paint rather than acrylic paint. Acrylic paint would have stuck better to the pumpkins, but it also would have stuck a bit too well to Elly and to my clothes. Elly tends to paint aggressively when she gets into a zone. Paint starts flying.

There is still the big pumpkin to decorate. Since we are stuck indoors thanks to Hurricane Sandy, we’ll have oodles of time to draw a face on it and carve it out. It’s a family affair because Dan is responsible for cleaning the guts of the pumpkin out.

Update: Elly loved helping Daddy carve the pumpkin though she refused to help clean out the seeds. She didn’t want to get her hands dirty. Ha!

Making Cards with Elly

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The foam sponges from Alex Toys are Elly’s favorite way to paint right now.

I had purchased these sponges a few months ago, but for a while Elly wasn’t in a mood to paint or draw. She seems to go in stages. Right now, we are in a painting stage. We’ve painted every day this week.

Earlier this week, Elly sponge painted on construction paper. My favorite piece is hanging in her bedroom.

Yesterday, I pulled some blank cards out and let Elly sponge paint them.

The design comes out so nice because of the way Elly prefers to apply the paint to the sponge. Originally, I had taught her to just press the sponge into the bowl of washable paint we use.

(Oh yes, we use washable paint by Crayola. Despite wearing an apron, the paint gets everywhere. It is partly because Elly likes to paint herself when she tires of painting on paper.)

Yet, Elly would often get frustrated with how difficult it was to get paint over the entire sponge. She wanted the end result to look like a dinosaur or a cat. So, I taught her how to apply the paint to the sponge with a paintbrush. She’ll paint one sponge after another. The joy seems to be in the painting and not in the stamping.