As the nice weather is apparently about to take a break for a few days we thought we had better make the most of the sunshine and head to the beach this afternoon. Inspired by this image I found on Pinterest I packed some paints, (acrylics) some brushes, a cup for water and a take away tun lid for a palette. You can read about the advantages of acrylics and why I like to use a flat palette here.
This activity would be great for any age. I'd like to try it again when I'm not on my own with both little ones as painting while balancing a baby on your knee and helping a toddler doesn't lead to my best art work! Drawing on stones is something I have always done but I've never painted them in situ on the beach before. On our anual family holiday me and my Brother and Sister and Dad always painted a stone with our names on the back to leave at the place we stayed in every year. I photographed some of them a couple of years ago.
First of all we just started painting stones randomly, experimenting with marks, patterns and colours. Here are Mati's stones.
Then I suggested to Mati that we could paint some stones to look like houses. She liked that idea and it quickly developed into a road with a house, some trees and a car. We were both coming up with different ideas and Mati played with the stone cars on the road for quite a while after the painting was finished. I always talk about what I'm doing as I'm doing it. For example "This stone looks car shaped, I'm going to paint it red. Does that look like a car? I'll give it blue wheels I think" I suspect this is because I am a teacher but it seems to be really useful when doing things with Mati as she listend carefully and uses some of the ideas and makes suggestions herself etc. I've noticed her doing the same thing too!! This was how the pebble road evolved.
After a snack and a paddle in the sea it was time for a tea party. Mati loves cake so this was brillian. She really enjoyed discusssing what cakes we could make and explaining what they were like while we were painting them. I added a tea pot, a cup and a jug and then we were able to have a game of cafes!
....and then it was time for dinner (a real one not one made of pebbles!) and some sand castle building before going home to bed!
Other ideas.....
- Teenagers would love painting their initials/names onto pebbles.
- A number for a birthday card with a difference.
- Baby foot/hand prints
- Using several pebbles together to create a larger area to paint on.
- Copying a famous painting onto a pebble.
- Making a face out of pebbles - each person paints a different part of the face (eyes,noes,ears,mouth, hair)
- Consequences with pebbles
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