This little painter of mine was thrilled when I suggested that we paint outdoors. We set up the easel, hung the paper and got out the paints and brushes for her to use. She painted for over a half hour before her little sister got into the paints that she was using.
I had tried to keep her little sister content with markers and paper and other outdoor games but my attempts failed fairly quickly when she saw what her big sister was creating. Thankfully, her "always-happy-to-share" big sister was more than willing to let her paint.
They painted quite peacefully for a few minutes. The little one was instructed to only paint on the back of the big sister's painting (that instruction was given by none other than the big sister). The little one seemed to enjoy dipping her brush into the bright colors and then spread them onto the paper. Everything was going smoothly until I turned around and saw the little fingers in the paint.
At first, I wanted to run to the little one and say "NO!" But, I just bit my tongue and watched for a while. The little fingers dabbled in the paints and then they spread paint around all over the paper.
The big sister thought about what her little sister was doing for a while before taking part in this paint exploration...
Suddenly our very civilized art experience turned into a messy paint exploration by both big and little sister. Even though our art experience didn't turn out quite how I had planned, it was a fabulous and unexpected progression of art with my little ones.
