1.28.2014

Petite Picassos

I'll be the first to admit that arts and crafts in our house don't happen often. Marcus makes enough of a mess with dirt, and mud, and water, and anything else he can get his little sticky hands on. It's not often we'll pull out paint or crayons. And, in my defense, Marcus sits still for said projects for about 10 minutes. I have a hard time justifying a huge mess for a meager few minutes. 

However, a few weeks ago while we were still in Kansas City, my sister-in-law suggested Marcus and his cousin try their hands with ceramic painting. Because my chid has zero finesse I wasn't too sure how the idea would pan out. But, it was freezing, we'd been stuck inside for what seemed like days on end, and we were all itching to get out of the house.

We set off to Paint, Glaze and Fire for snacks, story time, and painting ceramics.
After picking our surfaces to paint we listened to a short story, sipped on some hot chocolate, and got to business.
For a short while Marcus was into the whole painting process.
If I had to guess, we should have passed over the story and gotten right to the painting. Little man may have had a better time channeling his inner Picasso had we started with the mess making immediately.
Marcus' cousin, on the other hand, was quite the artist, and expertly painted his mug. Marcus took a few cues from his cousin, using different brushes and sponges. Mommy may have gotten her hand in on the action too (I didn't want a completely white plate)!
The finished products looked a little dull, but we were assured after the items spent the necessary time in the kiln they would come out shiny and beautiful.
Didn't the mug turn out great? I kind of want one with a "D" on it.

And, Marcus' plate is a masterpiece - at least in his mommy's eyes.
While the painting project was fun, secretly my favorite part was the lack of mess and clean up I had to deal with.

12 comments:

  1. Glad you gave it a chance! My girls can't go a day without channeling their inner artists =) My fav way to paint with little hands is finger painting outside where you can later hose them down.

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  2. Aww! So fun! My favorite crafts are the ones where you don't have to clean up after :)

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  3. I feel ya. The attention span is just not long enough to do crafts much. Since I got the bright idea of getting paints, we've had half of our dinner table covered in newspaper with paints at-the-ready for like three weeks because Mace will want to paint......for two minutes......but oh well. We have also done finger painting with greek yogurt and food coloring. Sort of fun. And edible!

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  4. How fun! This would be a total fun mommy and daughter date in a few years. Total bonus of no clean up! Love it.

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  5. Fun place to take kiddos! Preschool age might be better for attention span but like you said, they had to deal w/ the mess insead of you - win! :)

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  6. we like it there but I find that it's super expensive!

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  7. Cute! We did this with the kids once too. I need to take them back, because I think Molly would paint everything in the store now. Maybe I should save cashing out my 401k for that instead of DL.

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  8. I can't tolerate art projects. They make me anxious. I feel bad though so I try to allow them occasionally. I need to find more places like this so Hannah can paint and be crafty while I can relax.

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  9. That looks like a lot of fun! I think children of all ages would have a blast creating their own masterpieces.

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  10. What a neat idea. Im sure there has to be a place like that around Omaha somewhere.

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  11. This is a great idea - and I love Marcus' creation! I don't mind the mess (luckily) so Henry and I tend to do a lot of crafts despite his lack of interest sometimes as well.

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  12. Haha, is it weird that I want to do this?!

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