Introducing, The Splatter

Alex surprised me by asking to paint today. His art portolio caught his attention while I was rearranging our craft shelves. It has a photo of him painting on the front. He also spotted his primary paints that Aunt Ellen bought for him a couple of years ago.

'I want to paint like that!' Alex declared, 'I need a smock'.

I'd made Alex a new smock recently. On a stained white T-shirt of my own, I'd painted the words 'Let's Paint' in fabric paints. He loved it, but it's way too big for him still. I backed it up with another. Then I spread out our canvas drop paper and got out his Special Book. He was inspired by the paintings that were already on the canvases. He tried out paint moves and color mixing on those first and then would repeat it on the paper in his special book.

While he was painting, he discovered that he could drag his finger across the little brush. It wound up splattering paint all over him. I asked him to hold the brush down when he did it, because I noticed something. His experimentation had created a really cool splatter effect on his painting. He noticed it too and immediately went to experimenting further.

It came out really, really cool.

Wednesday, September 1