This saturday was the last day of the Artprenticeship summer camp. The last day my house would be full of overjoyed toddlers, begging me to read them a book and joining me as I turned my lounge into a paint playground. I was so sorry to see them go that I took bunches and bunches of pictures till the little ones started to find my camera intriguing,
“What is that?”
“What does it do?”
“Why are you taking so many pictures?”
Anyway, take pictures I did, so that I could remember that saturday morning we all spent with artists tape stuck to our fingers and acrylic paint crusted onto our nails as we made these wonderful abstract masking tape landscapes. Here’s how it went:
So this is something really fun that you can try easily with your toddler at home. All you need is a small piece of canvas, some masking tape cut into intriguing shapes, and a brush and some paint. You simply cover portions of the canvas in masking tape and allow your toddler to paint over the rest of the canvas. Then, when the paint is dry, you simply peel off the masking tape and you’re left with a gorgeous abstract or a funky landscape! We kept it monochromatic to make it simpler, but you could use a bunch of different colors to make it more interesting.
We certainly enjoyed the painting part:
But then, we had to wait for the paint to dry. So of course, we read books to help while away the time. We read about the Little Bear Who Won’t Sleep (By Christine Swift) and we read all about the mischievous Jack who climbs the Beanstalk. And when we were all finally done marveling at all the animals Little Bear met, and all the goodies Jack found, our paint had dried. Then, began the fun part. We pulled off all the masking tape eagerly, revealing our little landscapes!
And this is what our final product looked like!
At the end of the day, all the toddlers took their painting home and (I hope) hung them on their bedroom walls. That is why this activity is a must-try! You not only get a few hours of constructive fun, you also end up with a really lovely abstract you can use to decorate your home!
Anyway, that’s all for Artprenticeship. And, as sad as I am to see all these kids go, I’m also really glad the summer camp came to such a happy end.