Art time

Inspired by Amanda Soule's wonderful blog (and now book!) we have been having family art time and craft time each day for quite a while. One project we've been working on diligently has been this paper mache mask. We made the paper mache goop* together and since this was his first time I did most of the newspaper dipping and posing. I think he'll probably be involved in that more next time now that he knows what it's for.

We just got around to painting it this week and it was Little S who chose the color scheme. The plan is to make one a month and have a little collection at the end of the year for dress up. We're already trying to think of variations of what we can use for ears and different shaped noses like egg cartons and sticks and maybe even small pebbles. For this one we use penne pasta for the nose and eyebrows.

A lot of our family art time is spent simply drawing and coloring. Amanda is right when she says kids prefer this to watching t.v.** Little S has pretty much abandoned his nightly after the bath tv time in favor of drawing and painting for a little longer.


* There are a lot of tutorials for paper mache on You Tube and the like. Word to the wise is to do it outside and strip down to your skivvies! (paper mache has an accent on the e I know but I now have this American computer and if someone can tell me how to get the accents I'd be forever grateful)

** Family art time is usually after school between 3 and 6 o'clock and sometimes involves play date buddies. He can continue doing more art at night instead of watching his hour of tv if he prefers. He often says he prefers the art time to tv time lately.