This week, we’ve started having art time every afternoon. It’s a great way to spend time together and teaches so many things: the joy of manipulating colors and mediums, the endless possibilities found in artistic expression, and patience (if you happen to be a mommy like me who gets a bit anxious about paint-covered toddler hands), just to name a few.

This is our lovely guide book:

Please ignore the funky shadows. Amateur photographer in residence.

First Art : Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos by MaryAnn F. Kohl

So far, I’m enjoying this book. The activities are simple and I appreciate how they are all geared toward the “toddler and twos” audience. This means easy clean-up, basic instructions, and lots of fun. I’m also a fan of the over-arching philosophy that it’s all about the process. Any attempt to focus on product with this age group usually results in frustration for everyone involved. And I want my children to enjoy art. To feel that however they create it is amazing and special because it came from them.

Here’s an exercise from the book that we did yesterday: Tabletop Fingerpainting.

We started off with a blank canvas:

For this activity, Kohl recommends using a low table. Luckily, we just happen to own a white coffee table (courtesy of IKEA). Perfect.

The recipe for the paint can be found in more detail in the book, but it’s a combination of cornstarch, water, gelatin, and tempera paint. Pearl adores helping out in the kitchen, so making the paint was half the fun.

The other half of the fun:

The initial exploratory pokes at the paint.

It didn't take them long to really get into it. I mean, what's not to love about painting on furniture?

The paint was a bit thinner than I expected. It’s completely possibly that I didn’t let it cool long enough (you have to cook the cornstarch/gelatin mixture for few minutes). It’s also possible that it’s supposed to be this way. Didn’t really matter. The kids loved it. I think they really enjoyed having such a large and sturdy canvas. It was also fun to bend the rules for a while and do something completely new and unexpected. The freedom of painting on furniture!

The book talks about scraping the paint off when you’re done. When I read that, I thought it meant that the paint would kind of harden and peel off when you scraped it. That didn’t happen for us–didn’t really dry at all. Again, it could be that my interpretation of the text was totally off-base. It was very easy to clean up. I just wiped the table down with some water and soap. It was probably cleaner after the painting than it was before!

Activities that give my children a time and a space to just get messy with art make me smile.

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