My kid is an art fanatic. Crayons? Hoarded by the fistful. Markers? Yes, please, stained hands be damned. Chalk? How soon can she start? The king of them all, though, is Lily’s love affair with painting.
One of the problems with painting is the obvious mess, and the fact that it’s an activity that needs to be constantly supervised. Look away for a second and you never know what, or who, will get painted, and her unwavering devotion to the art means you have to dedicate at least a few hours to the activity. My everyday solution for this is to give her a cup of water and some paintbrushes so she can “paint” her chalkboard, but this weekend I wanted to give her the real-deal experience.
We headed over to Michaels to stock up on some supplies and let me tell you, that place is the holy grail for a two year old. First we had to smell every stem of fake flowers in the place, and then we took a good five minutes to appreciate the strands of glittering beads and stickers. When we finally made it to the aisle of paints, Lily wanted, “All the colors!” I let her pick some of her favorites and we headed home, my little one shouting, “Bye paint store!” the whole ride home.
We set up shop on the kitchen table and spent a few hours painting. My painting was inspired by a Rifle Paper Co. wrapping paper, which I’m using as a color scheme for Lily’s room. Lily’s painting was inspired by the colors, of course.
The next night, after everything was dry, we hung our art as part of Lily’s gallery wall. She is so darn proud to see her work displayed and I love the way everything came together. Most importantly, it was a really fun Mommy and daughter day.
Some details on the gallery wall:
Cross-stitch art! This quote from a wedding I photographed is such a beautiful sentiment. They’re words I’d love Lily to live by.
The above frame is filled with significant plane tickets from my dating history with Ian. Plane rides to visit each other long distance, a ticket from our engagement, and one from our honeymoon!
A photo of Ian as a kid. Lily looks just like him.
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