More Paint

In case you haven't noticed as yet, my favorite medium by far is paint. I think Rebecca's is also. The other day we were at a concert in the park when we found a bunch of magnolia leaves laying on the ground. I love how large and waxy magnolia leaves are, and as soon as I pointed the leaves out to the girls they immediately set to filling their little arms full of leaves. On the drive home we were brainstorming what we could use the leaves for, and Rebecca decided she wanted to paint them. So I pulled out the paint and brushes, put the girls in play clothes (or no clothes as in Elliot's case), and we painted the leaves. Rebecca diligently covered the entire back side of every leaf, while Elliot, noticing her bare skin, decided instead to paint her body.

I guess that should teach me not to let her paint unclothed! The funniest part was that she named each body part as she was painting it, saying "toes," "knees," etc.

After the paint dried I took thread and strung the leaves up as a sort of mobile, using two sticks that Rebecca collected on another trip to the park as the cross bars. The girls really liked the result. As the leaves twist on the threads you can watch the painted sides disappear behind the unpainted sides and vice versa. We might make a trip to the craft store and pick up some pastel-colored beads to string on the threads to dress them up a bit. Perhaps we should even look to add some different shaped leaves as well.