Of the gifts that we gave out this Christmas, my favorites are the ones we gave to Aki’s grandparents. We spent one whole morning working on the gifts. First we bought the materials from the Merriam Webster Bookstore near Don Bosco Makati. Art materials are cheaper there compared to other bookstores. The acrylic paints, the colors of which my toddler chose himself, were only PhP52. Paint brushes range from PhP7 to PhP21. The 11×15 canvas frames were only PhP108. In other bookstores, canvas of the same size, although of a different brand were being sold for PhP150.
It is been a while since Aki and I had a painting activity. When Aki was younger, he hated having his hands get dirty with paint. Now, he is more experimental. So experimental, that we had to deal with a giant version of a paint brush aka a mop, to clean the mess that he made.
Anyhoo, we used different techniques. There is of course the paint brush. Aki liked making circles by twisting the brush. We also used straw to blow the paint. This is my nth time to try my hands, or my mouth, at straw painting. Another fail once again. Aki can’t blow hard enough to really move the paint. Or maybe, we are using the wrong type of paint. Oh well, maybe in 6 months we will try again. The canvas also comes with little wood things, see lower left picture, that can be used to spread and mix the colors. Toy cars can also be used for painting.
I learned this masking tape technique from my friend Leslie’s blog. I folded the ends of each strip to make peeling easier.
My favorite technique of all was string painting. My sister did this when we were kids after reading about it from our Childcraft encyclopedia. I just tied a string to a macaroni so the string for easier handling and let Aki drag away.
Aki’s favorite was painting with his hands. I am not a big fan because if you mix blue, yellow and black, you get this ugly shade of The Hulk green.
Now for my little Picasso’s masterpieces.. Continue reading
