Over the weekend, the Little Pea tried her hand at arts and crafts. I had this great idea that she could try veggie painting and make valentines for her papa and her grandparents. To me, Valentine's Day is just another excuse for an art project.
At work we do veggie painting with bigger kids (by "bigger" I mean probably 3 and up). You lay a piece of unbleached muslin over top of some colorful veggies (carrots, kale, chard and beets are great choices), and then you use a blunt (safe) tool to smash and smash, and "paint" on the fabric. It's a lesson about veggie color - the more colorful the veggie, the better it is for you to eat. The paintings are very abstract, but kids always like them.
Anyhow, since we have plenty of ice-cube-sized lumps of pureed vegetables in the freezer, I thought we could try a variation on the smashing, and let the Little Pea try out finger-painting instead.
carrots and spinach
I can't say that this project was a success. The veggies didn't stain paper the way that they do with fabric. And even though I added some corn starch to try to make the "paints" goopier, they were much too liquidey, and the paper got mushy and tore.
Of course, torn paper was the best part of this project for the Little Pea, who didn't really understand why she was strapped into her high chair with food but nobody feeding her anything. At least she could tear paper and shove it into her mouth! Now that's fun.
She did get to try another art project the next day, when she was sitting on my lap while I colored a Valentine for HWWLLB. She grabbed the colored pencils and bashed them artistically on some paper. I added a heart, and presto! Baby's first valentine.
what a fabulous idea!
ReplyDelete:)