Repaintable Rocks

 I have recently really embraced the mess that is painting. It was always something that I flinched at, but has become a lot more manageable now that I plan for the mess rather than trying to avoid it. Today we had a lovely sunny morning with practically no wind, so I cracked out the old "painting" shirts, threw down my long since defunct queen sized sheet that passes as a fantastic drop-cloth, and let the kids go mad with paint. It does help that the paint is water based, and washes off - in fact, that's part of the plan.

A couple of months ago the kids helped me paint a large rock with pink, all-weather, multi-finish house paint. The result? A rock that is always painted... even when the rain washes off the most recent decorations. S. was fascinated when he painted on our large pink rock with water based paint, and found that all the paint had come off in the rain overnight, prompting him to redecorate it all over again. To follow up on the theme of rocks that stay decorated, that can be used as great garden decorations, I recently took the children to the paint shop in Johnsonville to buy some test-pots in red and black so that I could paint a ladybird on a rock. We decided to take it for a test-drive today.

Egg cartons make great palettes. You can put a pile of paint into the different cups, and they can either be mixed together in the cups, or you can use the lid as a mixing tray. Today we had division of responsibility because all A. really wanted to do was mix colours, so his little brother did the actual painting, and he just made the colours look cool. Division of tasks is the best way I have found yet, to make sure there isn't competition over resources. When they are working side-by-side and on those few times where they can agree to who is doing what, it makes for only a few little conflicts, rather than the zillionth iteration of World War 3. My five-year-old is finally beginning to get sophisticated enough in his persuasion of his little brother that he doesn't create more conflicts than he solves.

A: "Mummy, look - purple and seafoam green!"

I've found the key to embracing painting for little kids is to focus on the process rather than the product. Whenever I unpack that thought I am taken back to the day I was naming and dating paintings at Playcentre and I asked S. what one of his pictures was. "It a painting!" he explained. Of course, Silly Mummy. "What is in it?" After assessing which painting it was, he explained "I mix with white!" This leaves me with the impression that small children aren't trying to represent things. They haven't assumed that a painting is "supposed to be" anything. That's a cultural assumption that they haven't been bogged down by yet. Freed from that presumption, they are open to playing with tools, texture, methods of getting colour or shade on things, mixing different media, asking questions, doing things impulsively and seeing what happens... "what happens if I use the back of the brush?" or even less sophisticated, "I'll push this.. ooOooh!".

"I'm a hand-print!"

My eldest boy is particularly risk-averse so it was great to see him actually experimenting with mixing colours today. He seems to like predicting what the colours will turn out like before he combines them but doesn't like to share his predictions in case he is wrong. He gets very invested in the outcome and if anyone gets in the way of his product he gets very upset. Thankfully he was over today's activity before his brother decided to combine all the colours and paint his hands so that he could make handprints all over the back step. Again I am thankful for the paints being water based because he decided to decorate the house too. A. asked if we could paint the house some time, and I said no, because it's not our house. Maybe when we get our own place he can paint his own room... or at least chose the colours. The temptation to paint blackboarding on the walls is pretty strong.

Smiley face and manawa (heart) by Mummy.

If I want a project to look awesome, I make it my own project so I won't feel let down if the kids "ruin" it. That's why I painted the ladybird by myself. I find that life becomes a whole lot more sane if I find a half a second for myself in amongst all the time I spend on my kids. Thankfully I'm the sort of person who delights in little things I can call my own. Today was Mothers' Day - a day that is supposedly a special day for me. Realistically, it's another Hallmark Holiday designed to throw a cloud of warm fuzzy feelings on the "Buy Things Machine" so we don't notice the guilt and coercion of consumer industry. Thankfully, all it was to me today, was breakfast in bed, courtesy of a husband who loves me, some warm snuggly hugs with my kids, and a chance to spend time at home with my family, doing what we do. Happy Mothers' Day!