Messy painting

Whilst Little Miss C had her lunchtime nap on Monday I decided that we should make the most of the good weather and so I set up for us to do some painting in the sunshine. Whilst she slept it all looked so beautiful. I'd laid out everything carefully, taped the plastic sheet down so that wind didn't blow it away, put paint in four different containers, taped the paper down and I even had a special pot for the water that she couldn't tip over and spill.

Then the artist woke up…

She was very excited to see what we'd got lined up for the afternoon. She's done some painting at nursery before and I told she really enjoys it and likes to get stuck in. The same was true at home. She instantly grabbed the brush and started putting paint on the paper.

After a while, sitting there calmly just wasn't enough. She wanted to get more stuck in and seemed to have an urge to become one with her artwork (I'm sure all the best artists do this). The colours started being mixed and the brush was no longer sufficient to apply the paint to the paper – her hands could do it more efficiently she thought. Also, why bother putting the paint on the paper – skin can be painted too…

She was enjoying herself so much at this point that I didn't want to stop her. I was also feeling pretty smug about the fact that we were doing this outside rather than risk covering my living room or dining table in paint.

It was nearly an hour before she lost interest and then the real fun began. How do you get a small child, who wants to walk everywhere, upstairs to the bath without getting paint all over your cream coloured stairs carpet?

The answer – very, very carefully! 

I should add that we used Crayola Washable Paint so that we could clean up afterwards. Some of the blue colour on her hands was a bit stubborn, but I found that getting LMC to rub shampoo into her hair with her hands did the trick of getting it all off!