Canvas Art in two colours

Who loves painting?

I do, but only when little children aren't involved.

My first encounter with a painting disaster happened to be when I was painting the walls in my hallway. I had put the children in their bedroom with plenty to entertain them as well as food and drink and explained to them that I was painting the hall and not to come out. I finished painting and was feeling rather proud of myself.

As always, this moment of satisfaction was then followed by a mini disaster - James heard me packing up and came down the hall to help. My shriek of 'Don't touch the walls - the paint is wet' resulted in the inevitable sight of James plastered flat against the wall. To my shame, I was more concerned with trying to get the paint out of his jumper than I was getting it out of his hair. Luckily for James white paint is not very obvious in blond hair.

So after asking the kids what they really wanted to do, I was rather flattened to hear that they wanted to paint. Not something I will be very good at coping with while over-tired and already grumpy. The solution ended up being a compromise. We would get out a canvas each and paint it a solid colour. This is something we have done a few times over the years as presents for grandparents and I enjoy it almost as much as a non-painting kids activity.

While waiting for it to dry we would pick out a silhouette picture that we liked and cut it out of contact. Once the paint had dried, the contact picture would be stuck on to the canvas and we would paint over it with a contrasting colour.

Again, we waited for the paint to dry (a good time to stop for lunch) before peeling the contact away to show our simple painting.

Christopher decided to try 3 colours.
Now to peel the contact off to see if it worked.

Phew. We don't have to do it again!!!

And this is James's painting. He had help with cutting out the contact but he stuck it onto the canvas and did all the painting and peeling.

Hopefully I will think of something as stress free the next time I am faced with the painting request!