After the boys saw Brad and my waterfall and sailboat paintings, they began begging to paint with acrylics as well. I told Parker to brainstorm about twenty ideas on what he could paint and then we would decide on one that he could try. He decided on a gecko. First I asked him to draw one lightly with pencil on the canvas. Then he began to paint.
Jason didn't put quite as much thought into what he was going to paint, but he thought of doing a whale. He also drew quickly with the pencil before painting. I let the kids do everything themselves, except put the paint on their palettes.
Of course Liesel wanted to paint too, but she had to be content with coloring with a pencil and then eating cheddar cheese.
I was really impressed at how well the kids did. I was worried they'd get tired of it and just start scribbling, but they kept their focus and did a fantastic job!
Parker wanted his to look "real", so I told him about adding shadows. We pulled up a few photos of geckos on the ipad and found one that had good shadows, which he then tried to copy.
Here are their finished paintings: I picked up these great frames at Wal-mart for $4 so we can hang them in their rooms.
I love that Parker's lizard has his tongue out catching a fly. What a creative kid!
My success with this sailboat painting, gave me the courage to attempt something more difficult.
I decided to attempt painting jungle animals to match the other bedroom. Here is a shot of my supplies. They're all from Wal-mart and all inexpensive. Everything here combined doesn't even come to $15, including the canvas.
This one took me 7-8 hours. I took a few photos to document my progress along the way.
There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I am surprised at how well it turned out. I wasn't sure if I could paint anything I would want to hang, but I'm really pleased with the end product. It makes me want to take some lessons and learn better techniques. For now, I think I'll just keep practicing.
