Thursday, December 18, 2008

My granddaughter, Elanor, and I have a tradition of getting together to make Christmas presents for her to give. Her other grandmother, Judy, will help Elanor wrap and label the presents. This year (and last year) Elanor drew pictures that we turned into calendars. (I'll show you this year's calendar after Christmas so as not to ruin the surprise for family members who read this blog.)

Lorna, my daughter-in-law, and I thought it would be fun to "help" Jack make presents too. Handprints on paper came to mind but have you ever tried to get a 13 month old to make 11 good handprints? Judy and I tried that with Elanor one year and the poor kid was very unhappy. Not what we were after.

Lorna and I decided that "art" would be better than handprints. We stripped Jack down to his diaper. I put down drop cloths and we all wore our painting clothes. I got non-toxic washable Crayola paint that did, indeed, wash off when we were done. I used good paper in the hopes that these pieces will age well. Elanor helped - and at the end she got paint on her feet and made some really nice footprints!

We were able to cut out some surprisingly nice "paintings"! Steve shot movies. Here's a short segment showing the young artist at work... you'll notice that he's more interested in the snack than painting until we made that go away to the kitchen.

1 comment:

Jessica Martiele said...

I just followed a link to your blog, and I must say - beyond really enjoying the projects listed on this blog, and aside from the fact that I will be heading out this afternoon to pick up some washable paints for my 4 and 2 year-old, "Jack" is ADORABLE. What precious footage, and what fun to have a family full of people willing to strip you down and let you go nuts with paint! (That, and feed you snacks by hand while you work!) Thanks for sharing, and for all the ideas and projects on this blog!