Little Man's First Large Artwork

So, it's spring break for me this week and I've been trying to find things to keep me and my little man busy.  I don't know what inspired me to do it, but I had a flash of a thought and told little guy that we were going out to get him some paints.  (Yes, I had to go out and buy paints for this.  For anyone that knows me, yes, I do have a ton of paint, but nothing that was childsafe...so....off to Michael's we went!) And living in the art realm, you would think doing a painting would be an old hat for us, but it wasn't.  I guess because I do art all day long for my job, that by the time I get home and get wrapped up in whatever's going on, well, I forget or run out of time.  And that includes any art for myself too...:(  Anyways, little guy thoroughly enjoyed making his first large scale work, but didn't really care to get his hands messy, so there was a LOT of hand wiping going on, but I think it turned out GREAT!  And now we have a piece of artwork of his own to hang in our living room on a bare spot that had been begging to have something new go up there.  Maybe I will make this a yearly event for us!

Here's how we did it...

I picked up 9 sheets of identically colored scrapbooking cardstock paper in a 12"x12" size.  Very gently on the backside of the paper, I taped them together along the seams with removable tape.  When flipped over, it created a 3'x3' large paper space to work with.  Because I think mixed media is great, I had him work with crayons first.  Because it's a large paper and he's a little guy, I kept rotating the paper so he could have equal access to all areas.

He used a variety of colors, all his choice, and drew "pictures" and created lines.  As a side note, I really like the tin I'm storing his colors in.  It's a metal Crayola tin with an attached flip lid that stays shut pretty well.  I picked a couple of them up from Target. I cut pieces of paper sized to fit into the tin, so that way it's easy traveling and you've got everything you need.

Next, once he was done with the crayons, we moved on to the paint.  Again, Crayola, washable paint.  It's true, most art teachers really do love Crayola.  Even the ones that teach middle school and don't usually get the opportunity to use the more simplistic materials on a regular basis. :)

Here is the last stages of the work.  He's nearly done painting, and again, I kept rotating the work so he could reach all sides.  He's standing in something called a Learning Tower, it's a safety ladder/platform that they can safely stand in to do stuff like this.  I love the look on his face here, he's concentrating on what he's doing...

And here is the finished work.  I already had 9 12"x12" gallery style canvases (they have a deeper profile), that had previously been in this space.  I had taken them down awhile ago to change the images on them, and then never had a chance to put them back up.  After he was done painting and it had dried completely, I carefully pulled the tape away from the backs of the paper, and mounted each square individually.  I used good ol' Mod Podge Matte to adhere.  MP on the canvas and then the painted work on top and pressed into the MP paying special attention to the edges to make sure it wasn't going to peel off.

The finished work looks great I think.  Here's to hoping that he grows up to love art!