Get Your Inner Artist On!

Who knew that watercolour paper was sooo expensive? It is! From my point of view, $15 for a dozen A5 sized sheets is steep. So when I spotted an A5 size pad (12 sheets) for a happy two-buckeroos, I snatched it up like I was in training for a Gucci samples sale. But what to do with it? The obvious - a watercolour painting - seemed a little uninspired, so we changed it up a bit.

I prepared a few of my watercolour paints in a muffin tin (nb: sounds weird, but trust me, it's the best non-spill paint pallett for the under-4-year-old set), and laid out some blotting paper, our precious watercolour paper and some oil pastels, along with the usual painting arsenal of water, brushes, and cleaning cloths.

Thus began the tale of Eden's very first mixed-media art project, and I must say, the results were awesome! She drew a picture (ie, scribbles) with the oil pastels, pressing down harder than usual thanks to Mum's encouragement (my poor oil pastels!!).

When she was happy with her pictures, she washed the whole sheet of paper with the watercolours. If you attempt this at home, have some paper towels handy for blotting, 'cause I'm telling you now, kids love to drench their pics with paint. Drench, my friend. Drench.

Voila! Hang them up to dry, and your done. The paintings look lovely (I think), and we'll be doing more in future; I think they'll make pretty gift tags or cards for the fam, or you could cut out some petal shapes and make some flowers (just stick 'em to a circle of coloured cardboard, attach a pipecleaner at the bottom and you're done). I did some too, to show her different ways of playing around with it. Plus it was fun.

Eden's are the two at the top. Mine are the ones at the bottom.  You've gotta try this!

We experimented with masking tape too, to great effect. I taped an 'E' onto a sheet, and let Eden loose. Her painting was so pretty, I framed it for her bedroom.