All That Glitters

Our grandson, Madox, visits us each week, and as often as possible Grandma — that’s me — tries to have an art project or other activity planned. He’s a rambunctious eight-year-old with a lot of imagination, and I look for projects that I think will appeal to him and his creative spirit.

The “straw art” project I chose is another from Kathy, the Picture Lady’s blog.  After browsing through several of her fun ideas, I selected the “Crazy Critters — And More” specifically for Madox. It’s a somewhat “active” project — creating art by blowing through a straw — and I put a drop cloth on the studio floor so that we could get down close to our art work.

Madox chose violet as our color, and we mixed tube watercolor with water to begin. He had fun putting the paint on a sheet of construction paper and “blowing” into it to create a fanciful shape.

He then decided it would be fun to “dive bomb” paint onto another sheet, so he stood up and splattered paint from on high. He loves splatters!

We let these two paintings dry just a bit, and then we sprinkled on gold glitter. We also used pens to turn shapes into “critters” — although our ink isn’t too visible on the dark color.

Madox made his “crazy critter” a rearing horse. I definitely see it!

Here’s the second “dive-bombed” painting, with glitter, but before we drew in “critter” features.

It was a fun project — especially with gold glitter. So now I have a sparkling, glittering floor in the studio. The stairs glitter and gleam. Our kitchen floor… the kitchen table… everything is glittering!

So, remember, all that glitters may not necessarily be gold. It might just be a crazy critter!