She LOVES to paint, so she was excited.
We pulled out our new brushes and paints and a new pad of Bristol board. I found the brushes online for around $7, the Reeve's Acrylic Art Paints for $13, and the Strathmore Bristol board on sale for %50 off at Michael's Craft--a sum total of about $25, but we'll be using these materials over and over. We're not forking out that much money for a single project.
We talked about different kinds of paints and different kinds of brushes. We decided to use some of each kind of brush from this set--some are flat, some are round--and a tiny daub of color from each tube of paint to create a painting. The rules were: You must use every color; You must use ALL of every color; You must use both kinds of paint brushes.
That second rule was the hardest. Maren wanted to paint a tree, and I decided I'd do the same. As we painted, we found it was easy to use up the greens and browns. But the darker blues, black, and purple proved something of a challenge. Maren had a hard time with the reds because she chose to paint a summer tree. I had run out of green painting my hill, so I opted for an autumn tree. There went my reds.
In all, we had to use 24 colors--white, 3 yellows, orange, flesh, 3 reds, violet, 4 blues, 4 greens, 4 browns, black, and gray.
In the end, it took a heck of a lot of creative thinking to use up all the paint. Maren's painting began to get considerably more abstract as she worked to use all the colors in SOME way. But she was using her noodle to figure things out, reaching into her creative centers to figure out the problem at hand.
When she was finished she wasn't hugely satisfied with the end result, so she wouldn't let me take a picture.
So we talked about what she didn't like about it. She didn't like her tree. So we talked about some techniques for painting trees and practiced a bit. She didn't like the clouds, so we talked about techniques for painting clouds and practiced that. This is one thing I really love about the Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas--it teaches technique in drawing or painting a lot of common objects--like skies, clouds, trees, grass, etc. Using those very simple techniques we were able to improve her understanding of how to construct some of those things with paint in a very few minutes.
A word to the wise: Get into the habit NOW of taking good care of paint brushes and teaching your children to do the same. With proper care, a good set of brushes will last YEARS, but if they just ONCE are left to dry with acrylic paint in the bristles, you won't have any choice but to toss them.
Proper brush care:
1. Use cold water ONLY on brushes. Warm or hot water can soften the glue that holds the bristles into the brush.
2. With water-based paints (acrylic, watercolor, etc.) keep brushes you are not using RIGHT NOW soaking in water.
Acrylic paints dry FAST, and once they are dry there is NO removing the paint from the bristles. It's perfectly fine to rub them fairly vigorously against the bottom of the water cup/can to remove the color of paint you've just used. Change the water as needed to prevent muddying the colors on your palette as you mix. Even fairly dirty water won't have much effect on your colors if the brushes are well-rinsed and squeezed as dry as possible in a paper towel or rag before painting with a different color.
3. To clean water-based paint from brushes, simply run under cold water, using your fingers to separate the bristles. Continue until the water runs clear.
If the bristles are a little stained you may try washing them with a little mild soap. Most artists use a bar of Ivory for this. Rinse thoroughly, then reshape the bristles a little with your fingers.
Dry vertically with bristles up or horizontally on a towel.
4. With oil-based paints, do NOT keep unused brushes in water. Oil paint dries very slowly, so brushes can be set aside while not currently in use for several hours before the need to clean them arises. You can also store unused, paint-filled brushes without cleaning if you wrap them thoroughly in plastic wrap, removing as much air as possible. When you want to clean a brush, use a paper towel or rag to wipe as much of the paint out of the bristles as possible. Now wash the bristles with mild soap (a bar of Ivory works very well, though a mild dish liquid works fine, too) under cold running water. The technique is as follows: Wet the bar of soap or squirt a quarter-sized pool of dish soap into the palm of your hand; Rub the side of the bristles (both sides) on the soap until the soap is thoroughly incorporated into the bristles;
Now rub the bristles in the palm of your hand (lots of color should be coming out of the bristles);
Rinse and repeat until the soap no longer draws color from the bristles; Use a paper towel or rag to remove as much water as possible. Reshape bristles and leave to dry.
5. With ALL kinds of brushes, dry and store either horizontally or vertically with the bristles UP. The cup or can you use for your water can double as a paint brush storage container.
6. Teach your child to paint JUST with the bristles. Too much pressure exerted on paint brushes (so that the child is painting with the stick instead of the bristles) will damage the bristles irreparably. This is particularly true of watercolor brushes, which have MUCH softer bristles than brushes used for oils or acrylics.
Ah! It's the weekend. We'll see you again on Monday!
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