Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Work of (he)Art

After seeing a blog post over here about edible finger paint, I decided to give it a shot for Madison.  I found a recipe on Pinterest (where else?), gathered all necessary ingredients (corn starch and food coloring), and got started.

I thought it would be fun to make her first project a Valentine for her daddy.  Yes, I am posting this a week late, thankyouverymuch. If I had it to do all over again, I'd quarter the recipe.  See the jar on the left in the picture below?  Yeah, that's the extra paint.  Right now it's in the fridge, just begging for someone to mistake it for mayonnaise.  I thought I'd try it later to see if it works as leftovers.  I'll keep you posted on that one.

I decided to go with just two colors, mostly because I only cleaned two baby food containers for the project.  Of course we did pink, because who makes a Valentine without a little pink?  I wanted to do pink and red, but I'm pretty sure we would have needed about a gallon of food coloring to turn that little jar red, so I settled for pink and blue.
Since I figured that "Happy Valentines Day!  We need to replace seven stained kitchen tiles!"  would make for a less than romantic greeting when Pat got home, I protected the kitchen floor by taping down a cut up gift bag and some newspaper.  I also prepped her "canvas" by taping out a border and a heart on a sheet of scrapbook paper.  If I had it to do over again, I'd definitely use something a little sturdier, like cardstock. 
I wasn't sure how Madison would react to the new texture.  I made the paint during her nap and kept it refrigerated, which not only chilled the paint, but also thickened it to almost a play-doh consistency.  The only thing I was sure about was that she'd taste test it at some point.  Here she is 0.003 seconds after touching the paint for the first time:
I guess it was good, because she decided to go for the source.  You know how when you're taking pictures and only looking through the camera at an event, and there's a little bit of a lag-time?  Maybe that's just me.  Anyway, I looked up from the camera to see this:
  With a little coaxing grabbing her pudgy little hand and scraping it across the paper, she started her "painting". 
After letting her get a good amount of pink on the paper, I had her swap to blue.
 Before she applied it to her masterpiece, she had to do some quality control:
 The finished piece.  See how lumpy the paint turned out?  I added extra cornstarch while mixing it, because it seemed thin.  I think next time I'll stick with the recipe.

Next time, I'll also have a bath ready and waiting.  Painting is messy work!
 Of course Madison's artwork merited a spot on the frame wall, so up it went!  We made a few other changes since you saw it last.  Once I get it all the way I want it, I'll do one big post. 
 I was in a huge rush to get off to our Valentine's date when I was framing this, so I did a horrible job and made it all wrinkly.  At the time, I planned to fix it once we got home.  That was seven days ago, and I haven't touched it...oops!  Oh, and I mentioned that next time I'd use cardstock or some more suitable surface for the painting.  This is why:
See the white spot in the left ventricle?  That's where the painters tape tore away the wet surface of the paper.  Again, oops!

I'm kind of nervous to see how the painting ages.  Have you ever used cornstarch paint?  Should I expect some sort of mold or pest problem a few months down the road?

-Kelli

1 comment:

  1. So cute, of course she had to test it, both colors; because that's what artist/creative people do:) What a little sweetheart. Love ya Madi!!! Grandma

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