Paint! Paint! Paint! Three new ways to create.

One afternoon after lunch, the bag of paints I keep on the closet shelf in Tyler's large motor room mysteriously fell down and onto the floor, which Ty discovered first. Luckily nothing opened and splattered, but Ty did instantly come to me with two bottles of paint and asked to paint, then patiently sat at his table with them. I hadn't exactly said yes, as I was about to prepare things for nap, but I was also feeling a lot of guilt about our lack of art time, so I threw together the first project listed here. Since then I've found more time for the painting that Ty loves, and we've used some new ways of painting to mix things up that I wanted to share!

For the first project, I simply taped a piece of foil to cardboard and provided him with a few q-tips. He used his hands for much of this project until I showed him how he could cut through the paint with the q-tips and see the foil, creating lines and letters and whatever else he wished. He thought that was pretty neat and decided to do it himself. He was so focused that he actually forgot how much he loves to paint his body and hair (yay)!

Ty also decided to prove me wrong and excitedly did art outside last week! I turned a box inside out so that it would be a clean slate for him rather than looking at labels etc and allowed him to paint it. I think having something so large and with dimensions really peaked his interest and was enough to rival all of his exciting outdoor toys for a bit.

The second day we colored the box with markers, which as you may be able to see from his expression, he really got into! Again I think having such a large space and a different canvas woke him up to new possibilities.

The third day we used stickers to decorate the box. I dare say this box will be the prettiest shipping box of all when we move! I plan to let him pack this one with whatever he'd like and make it Tyler's special box.  

Though Ty has been sick or suffering from allergies the past few days, he isn't acting ill at all, so today, as I had planned, we used old shapes from a shape sorter and paint to make shape prints. We haven't done a lot of printing yet but I plan to do more after this. He picked up on what to do right away and loved the fact that he was making shapes all over the paper!

I bought and hung this cork board to hang some of his work as an addition to his art display a few months ago but I don't believe that I ever shared it here. He truly enjoys looking at his work and pointing things out that he's done. I love how proud he is of his work and how am happy that his brain is reminded of what he did to create each work of art when he views and talks about them.

A big blog with lots of Montessori and toddler fun is coming soon!

Linking with Getting Messy With Ms Jessi.