Rudy Van Gogh

"I paint with my hands."

Anybody who's been to my house in the last few months is well aware of Raina's current passion for painting.  Santa brought her a nice large set of watercolors for Christmas, after she demolished several smaller sets in the preceding weeks.  If you're looking for a good set, I highly recommend these:  Alex Jumbo Watercolors  They're worth every penny, and still going strong two months after getting them, despite almost daily use. 

While a drop cloth, paint brushes, watercolors, and various papers are nearly always scattered across my kitchen table, I usually reserve "messy paints" for outdoors (and therefore warm weather) only.  Not that my house is ever actually clean, but the constant battle against kid/dog/cat/grown people messes leads me rarely do anything intentionally that might cause unnecessary mess.  So, I surprised myself earlier this week, when Raina found the tempera paints and I actually let her use them.  On the kid's art easel.  In my kitchen. 

Masterpiece underway

My guilt was two-fold.  Raina was miserably sick with a sinus infection.  In fact, after painting that morning, she proceeded to sleep almost the entire day, overcome by fever.  Being a mommy (read: sucker) I wanted anything to make her feel better, and let her carry on through several large sheets of paper till she pooped out.  Secondly, I'd recently dis-enrolled her from her Gymboree art class that she'd been enjoying weekly for about a month.  She loves that class.  It's an hour of hands-on crafting goodness, with a pace that matches her 30 second attention span.  She gets to paint on the walls (on paper) at the beginning of each class, and uses her hands every time.  The first time we went, she hesitated, and I encouraged her to paint with her hands, and do whatever she wanted.  It's art after all, and I sure as heck wasn't going to let her paint with "messy paints" inside my house anytime soon!

Ahem.

Fear not.  I am not depriving her permanently of the wondrous (and pricey) Gymboree class.  I simply plan to re-enroll her in the summer, after her part time preschool ends for the semester.  Somehow, I'm sure she'll still be more than happy to have unbridled access to paints, glitter, glue, feathers, foam stickers, tape, and googly eyes.