Brushes and Paper and Paint–Oh, My!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Peter’s being here when we had lots of rain here in Waco. We couldn’t get out to do some things I had planned (zoo, play outside, have worship service in the park on Sunday). Although we were able to take a rainy walk Saturday afternoon, we mostly did inside things instead (reading, making cupcakes, watching Mighty Machine videos, playing with dominoes, playing with colored craft sticks). And we got out the art box.

Rainy day art

Peter wanted to paint. He chose the purple and suggested that I take the red. We painted together. One page. Two pages. Three pages. Four pages. Then he said “Let’s pour out the paint.” I got another sheet of paper and we poured out what was left of the red and purple paint that was left in the bottoms of the containers. (They were pretty small.)

Peter did much of the guidance: “Paint a bunny. I’ll paint the red ears and you do the rest.” Can you locate the bunny? It’s next to the heffalump that he painted all by himself.

“Let’s paint the zoo. You paint nine ladybugs.” Fortunately he lost interest in ladybugs and wanted to paint the playground at the zoo. I’m sure you can identify those things (okay, I can make ladybugs).

“Make a spiderweb,” he said. I painted it in purple and he filled in the spaces with red. Then he painted a red blob in the center and said, “This is a spider. Make its legs.” I painted on purple legs. He said, “Did you make six legs?” “No, I made eight legs.” “Spiders have six legs.” “No. They have eight legs. Really.” Ah. So he added some more red legs, because … I don’t really know why.

But my favorite painting is the one we did first. It’s the top left-hand one. Peter was daubing on purple, and I, out of my element, was using the red paint to make wavy lines, one after the other, right next to each other.

“What are you doing, Mimi?” “I’m making wavy lines.” “Make a big one.” I did.

“It looks like Slimey, the Worm,” he said

Slimey the Worm is a Muppet character on Sesame Street. He’s orange. Peter has a green smallish, fuzzyish … well, snake, actually, that he calls “Slimey, the Worm,” also. (The characteristic he notices, in the Muppet, in his toy, in my painting, is the wavy shape, not necessarily the color.)

I made a smaller, thinner wavy line that’s more the size of his green worm. He examined it closely and said, “Write Slimey.” I got a red pen and wrote, underneath the shape, “Slimey.”

“No,” he said. “Write it on top.” “I already wrote it underneath.” He thought for a minute or so and said, “Write ‘The Worm’ on top.” I did.

“Now write ‘Mimi.’ Right here.” I wrote “Mimi” where his finger was pointing. “Now write ‘Peter’ there.” And I wrote “Peter” as he directed. And here’s how it looks now.

Yes, that’s what it says now. “Mimi the worm,” and “Slimey Peter.”

Yes, there are rewards. And pride. And I’m having so much fun. Meanwhile, here’s what happened when we poured out the remaining purple and red paint in our jars. You don’t have to make something with paint. Sometimes you can just swish the colors around with your brushes and create new colors. We are following a good example for that. Re: Sunsets after rain.