More together painting...

Yesterday I posted on my facebook page about last week's new "Together" painting ( you can see that here...) where we had focused on purple and white, but a misunderstanding of what colours were called involved the introduction of pink and red too to help with understanding...

Then we painted with green, yellow and blue with feathers..

Today the colour choices were green, blue, yellow and white and each child could choose two colour to have in their pot... some kept it half and half for a while so they could choose colour while others went for the big mix straight away...

The first 30 minutes there were 3 children... a 2 yr old and two 3 yr olds. They had all chosen their paint brushes themselves and after a while I could see the 2 yr old was struggling with her long thin brush and said "I see that you are finding it tricky to paint the way you want to, I recommend choosing one of these three brushes and see if that makes it easier" - I showed her three thicker brushes with shorter handles... each slightly different. She made her choice and her painting became much easier... in fact if I had not known that she had just been to the toilet I would have asked if she needed to go... as she danced the whole time with excitement at being able to paint so big - jumping to reach the top and sitting on the floor to paint low low down...

The I went off to a meeting and the painting was put on pause as there was no teacher availbale to be in the atelier with them... I let them know they would be welcome to come back when I returned... they all thought this was quite acceptable...

When I returned I scooped up a four year old that was struggling with her social interactions and asked if she wanted to come and paint instead... yes... and immediately she found her calm as well as an outlet for her energy (if that makes sense).
Two of the others returned to painting eagerly trotting after me the moment they saw me!! The big atelier was open for another half hour before needing to close for the day. BUT this was ample time for these children to explore the paint and the paper to near disintegration...

They tried out a variety of styles and techniques... spirals, circles, lines - mixing colours. Then I noticed that when they used their brush quite hard a bit of the original purples and pinks came through. My finger, curious, had to just run through the paint and check... yes - a new kind of painting technique could be done today... the four year old snapped up the idea directly... the other two looked at me and asked "can we use our hands?" - "yes, of course - just roll up yur sleeves a bit more"...

NOW the paper was being attacked - a full body art experience - scratching, rubbing arms waving wildly - and then they noticed how much paint they had on their hands... "what do we do with this" "Try making prints..." and so they started banging out prints too...

They scooped out paint from the pots and slapped on some more - three children busy with their own areas watching each other, laughing and thoroughly enjoying the experience...

The finished art of as today... I was thinking of taking it down and putting up new paper to do a hand only painting... but now that I look at it I find it is telling me to add more colour... but stamping or splatter... in my head now has come the idea of dipping th end of a straw in paint and then blowing out splashes onto the green... would be could for mouth muscle training and therefore pronunciation... (might have to give it a try first to see if it works...)

Next week the Together painting is going to be rings rings ring - as we are having and Olympic and Russia theme next week to celebrate one of our children that comes from there...