If you hate mess look away!
If you’re one of those people who get palpitations at the sight of a toddler with a paintbrush then this activity isn’t for you. It looks incredibly messy. It is incredibly messy. The thing is, for once I planned things right and managed to contain the mess to one area of the garden. I will admit a few drops of paint did go on the mat, but that is all. To be honest the twins can make more of a mess if I leave them in an empty room.
I bought a giant roll of paper and wanted to use it to create a huge painting. There is no way I wanted to do this in the living room so it had to wait for a sunny day.
while I was setting up I gave the girls some blueberry ice lollies to eat. They didn’t manage to sit still the entire time but none of them stepped in the paint, so that was a success!
I rolled out the huge paper and gave them some paint each in red, yellow and blue. then let them walk and run across the paper.
It’s wonderful to see their different personalities coming into play. The twins were completely different in their approach. Charlotte enjoyed every minute and got really stuck in and seemed to love the feel of the paint on her toes and running up and down on the paper. Rose did put her feet in very cautiously but wasn’t really very keen. Molly would have been the same at her age, but now she loved it and wanted to try every colour.
It took quite a long time to cover the whole paper.
I quite like the finished effect. We ran out of yellow in the end and used gold which did make it shine.
My master stroke was getting the paddling pool ready for when they had finished. The paper started to rip a little bit so they all went in the pool to cool down and wash the paint off.
After I tidied up the pool was a bit too inviting – a great way to cool down after some fun messy play.
OK I’m going to be honest and admit things didn’t go 100% to plan. The girls did come out of the paddling pool and chase a cat round the garden for ten minutes, wearing only a swim nappy. I also didn’t do the best job of tidying that I could. I left the picture pinned to the washing line over night in the rain and by the morning it was a mangled soggy mess. Oh well. That’s still a success in my book.
For more idea for painting outside with the children look at my guest post here:
I am linking to Get Crafty, Tuesday Tots, Tiptoe Through Tuesday, Let’s Play Science Sparks