Toddler Art 101

For a while now I've been thinking about how and when to introduce Pax to making art - other than crayon scibbles on notepads and magnadoodling, that is. So I came across this wonderful website that inspired the poop kittens out of me! It was chock full of art adventures for 1-3 year olds. And they're really fun and cool and... ok, I wanna do them myself.

This morning I woke up with a mission - we were going to get our art on!!! Pax and I headed out to a Big Lots (my maiden voyage to one of these buggers! Why haven't I been in one of these before?) We wandered the aisles grabbing anything and everything that made us go, "ooo!" This included some clearance Christmas garland, yarn, contact paper, salt, a variety of beads, play dough, water color paints, a cool Crayola "Get Started" pack (crayons, chalk, markers, colored pencils & paint), sketch paper and a big green plastic tablecloth. We were set!

We got home and little bear immediately went to play in his dirt-barrow and I giggled my way into the breakfast room. First I cleared the table and spread out the plastic tablecloth. Then I started unloading the goods. Weee!!! I grabed up Pax, put him in a chair and unleashed the Play Dough. More weeee!!!!! We strated off just squishing and gooing and pulling and stretching. Then we made the quintessential snakes. He hisssed and giggled and yelled, "Bue nake!" and "Ed nake!" and "Ellow nake!" It was awesome to see him this excited! Turtles were constructed as were funny faces with moveable features. It was awesome!

Next up were the markers. It was love at first pen stroke! He thought these were the coolest thing since... well, since Play Dough. Sooooo much cooler than crayons! The lines could be fat or skinny and the colors were bright and, AND they turn fingers green and blue and rainbow!! Rock on markers, rock on!!! We then flowed through the colored pencils, chalk and crayons, but nothing held a candle to the markers. Needless to say we wound up with green and blue dripping off his chin and little color spots in places I had no idea he could reach. Colors were mixed up and the Play Dough was markered up and crayons were chewed and everything was everywhere. It was a glorious mess!!!!! 

The initial art fest lasted just over an hour. My heart broke when he wanted to get down and move on to greener pastures, but it soon fluttered again as he came back to the table multiple times throughout the evening hollaring "Pay Dough!!!" 

It was a fun intro to making art. I can't wait for tomorrow! We have something waaaay cool on the agenda. Something even messier and (I hope) awesomer!!! I'll let ya know how it turns out.

Cheers!