Second session of Christmas painting on the light table

this session was with the 3-5 year olds - so I was wondering how this would differ from yesterday's more sensory experience. The first snowman made its appearance....

And once the print was made there was plenty of time to experience the paint. This first child really enjoyed the experience and fully explored its properties...

checking how the paint felt on her hands...

squishing it to make noises...

checking how it looked on her hands...

putting hands together slowly and pulling them apart to see how the paint stretched...

almost as much time was spent exploring the paint in her hands...

of course the funny "fart" like noise was very satisfactory and made all the onlookers share in the joy too

and the experience would not have been complete without including more of the body in the experience. This was one of those experiences where my own emotional reaction as I watched was very strong - to see the pure joy, the satisfaction this child experienced while interacting with the paint and the other children - and me was beautiful.  In this blog I will not show the faces of the children I work with - if I did I would be able to share her joy with the world.

"I am going to draw a Christmas tree (julgran) - oh I have drawn just a tree - but if I put decorations in it - it can be a  Christmas tree (julträd) - cat, dog, snowflakes... This child also allowed me to understand one of yesterday's comments - several of the children yesterday had commented that it smelled like chocolate, which I thought was a little strange as its just ordinary paint. Today this child asked me if I was spreading chocolate on the light table - which made me realise that the slight brown look it gets on the light table does make it look like chocolate. I guess that the children yesterday assumed it must smell like chocolate if it looks like chocolate...

This child was so incredibly proud of her print - everyone who came into the atelier afterwards  was directed by her to look at her print "do you see it? Its soo cool. It was magic you know. It was on the light table and now its on the paper. Look at it, look, its so  amazing..." She drew lots of people, a sun and a cat - in Swedish the people are called "huvudfotingar" head-footers - as they do not have bodies - even the cat is one - with three legs!

I painted a thin black frame around the edge of their prints - so the table was filled with lots of black lines. I started to clean and asked one of the children if they would like to help as she looked with inquisitive eyes. She nodded - and 3 seconds later there were 5 girls busy scrubbing the table with very bubbly sponges

it did not take long for them to work out that they could make pictures in this too - but this time fingers were black, not white.

and of course exploring the bubbles was fun too. I love when cleaning up becomes an artistic project that is worthy of its own session!