Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and as we left Mass with ashes on our foreheads I had the idea for our next art project: charcoal drawing. Charcoal is always one of the first tools used in college art classes, and I thought it would be fun to let my girls experience the shading and smearing properties that make charcoal so unique.
So I laid a few large pieces of butcher paper out on the floor and gave each kid a
piece of charcoal. At first Rebecca set to writing the letter "E" and drawing faces, her two most frequently drawn symbols when coloring. Elliot was more interested in the roll of butcher paper and went about trying to unravel it. When I showed Rebecca how to smear the charcoal she had already put down on the paper, she started make finger prints and handprints all over the paper, covering her palms with black.
Rebecca made an exciting discovery when she decided to lay the charcoal on its side and fill the paper with black chalk: as she colored she revealed the edges of the square tiles beneath the butcher paper. Even though Elliot didn't seem very interested in the charcoal, she still ended up covered in it. We went straight to the tub after this project!
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