Day 16 & 17 - Creating a Masterpiece

After 6 months of  picture books and cartoons, I felt it was time Dylan began his cultural education, and so we embarked on a trip to the Turner Contemporary to introduce him to the world of art.  We visited Rodin's 'The Kiss', and more importantly, the gallery's cafe. I like to think that he is a more cultured baby, but he would have been a lot more impressed if the statue was brightly coloured, or if he could have tasted it (pretty sure that is not museum etiquette).

Our trip to the Turner inspired today's activity, as we attempted to create our very own masterpiece. Unfortunately there is no final picture, as it ended up scrunched, dribbled on and chewed, but we had a lot of fun in the process.


Well aware that anything put near enough to Dylan will inevitably enter his mouth, I decided to make my own finger paints.  The recipe I used is:

flour- some,
water- some,
food colouring- lots.
Keep adding and mixing to you have a suitable consistency and colour.  (very official recipe there)

I knew the baby food jars would come in useful someday, and they proved perfect to mix and store the paints in.  Stripping the baby to just a disposable nappy and long sleeved bib, we got messy.  Some poking,  printing and stomping later, and we had bright colours everywhere, paper, newspaper and toes. After a few minutes it did all get a bit too much, and the paper and thumb went in the mouth, but the beauty of homemade paint meant that it didn't matter.

The paint washed straight off with water, and all evidence besides these photos is gone.  The wonder of a child that can't crawl is that they can only get things in their immediate vicinity messy!