I'm Still an Animal: Animal Track Painting

Mom has seen animal track painting projects done with small plastic figurines before, but this is one I actually came up with on my own.  I was set to do some painting on my acrylic easel and decided to use the bucket of animals I had just liberated from "animal prison" (and whom, incidentally, I had put in said prison while playing "animal control.").  The insects actually worked the best and, after a while, I painted all of them a rainbow jungle.  Cam joined us on the roof after her nap and was more interested in painting the animals themselves -- who doesn't love a pink and purple penguin?  

A Heat Wave Blew Into Town Last Week: Outdoor Sponge Painting

As if we need to tell anyone on the east coast that we've been looking for ways to keep cool!  Our outdoor acrylic easels are really coming in handy with this hot weather -- we keep them on the roof deck and water play is always involved when we break them out.  This one was super simple -- mom cut up a bunch of cleaning sponges; we dipped them into paint and sponged away.  I was more into it than Kane -- although he liked trying to paint the table.  Then we broke out the hose and used the same sponges to clean it all up!  And you know we got naked.  What else are you going to do in this heat!?

Summer Sun: Pop-Up Stained Glass

Our new outdoor acrylic easels just might turn out to be the biggest hit of our summer.  We love them because we naked art with them, we take our time by alternating making art and playing with our water/sand table, and, well, we naked art with them.  Mom loves them because they are easy to use in our minimal outdoor space and the "pop-up" nature of a lot of the art we create with them allows for easy clean up and minimizes the amount of artwork piling up in our house.  And we've all been a little bit under the weather this week, so they've come in handy to get us outside without requiring a significant undertaking.

One afternoon we gathered up our scraps of bleeding tissue paper and made some temporary "stained glass" on the easels simply by brushing on the tissue paper with water.  Kane seemed interested and wanted to dip the paper in water and stick it on that way, but he was still wasn't feeling great and bowed out early.  I took turns "painting" with mom and playing with my new dora and boots mermaids (i think i'm getting the hang of this potty training negotiating).  It looked so pretty with the summer sun shining through it as we worked on it.  And when we were all done, it just dried up and brushed right off.  Easy peasy temporary art.

Outdoor Acrylic Easel

We don't have very much outdoor space at our house.  In fact, all we have is a little roof deck.  But, for being in the middle of the city, that's something.  It does mean, however, that many of the cool outdoor projects mom wants to do in the summertime have to wait for a NJ visit (Nona and D-rock are good sports about letting us use the yard for all kinds of hijinks -- like our sidewalk chalk paint).  But mom thought these acrylic outdoor easels would be a perfect fit for us (and take some of the mess outside!).

Now, we'll let you in on a little secret.  For some reason, Kane and I insist on going buck naked on the roof deck.  Usually it's because we're playing with our sand and water table.  But even if all we're doing is having a picnic lunch, you'll still find us in our birthday suits.  Which was another good reason to take our painting outside -- less laundry!

The easel was super easy to make.  The acrylic panels were a little on the high side pricewise, but cheaper than if you purchased an acrylic easel outright -- like this or this).  And we thought ours turned out sleeker and storage-friendly.  Mom bought four, 24" X 30" (1/8" thick) acrylic panels from Delvie's Plastics, Inc.  We're sure you could get something like these from a home improvement store, but you know mom hearts online shopping.  The price of the panels increased significantly with thickness, so mom purchased pretty thin ones.  They bowed a little, but worked perfectly well.  Once she peeled off the coating (which was a PIA), she used her new gold duct tape to tape the two pieces together along the top (clear packing tape would work, too.  but who doesn't love gold duct tape?).  Then we just stood it up and painted.  When you're done, wash it off, fold it down and store.

Kane was sidetracked by the sand and water table, but I was a big fan of this naked painting.  I used brushes, sponges, fingers and toes (and painted my own fingers and toes while I was at it, too).  Mom bought enough acrylic to make us each our own easel, but we surprised her by each painting on one side of the same one.  So we'll have to cook something else up with the other two pieces.  Surely we can think of something!