Blues Artist

Most of you who know us, know that D. is a wonderfully gifted artist. In my book, he's the best, but I'm not partial. Well, we thought with Mother's Day being tomorrow, the grandmothers would like a little something special from a special little someone. We (me) decided, why don't we give them hand prints of G. at almost 11 months old. Instead of doing bright primary colors, we (I) could do something that would blend in nicely with their decor.

I've done hand print art many times with my kindergartners, but it didn't quite dawn on me that my kindergarteners and G. are quite a bit different when it comes to age and skill set. We (I'll include D. since he was helping me with the execution of the project) also should have done this at another time other than right before bed after a full day at a cousin's birthday with about half as much nap time. That being said, here's what we had on our hands.


So, either the circumstances got the best of G. or he's going to use more of the left side of his brain like his Mama. All in all, we scrapped two hand print canvases (washed off the hand prints to retry in the morning), but one came out pretty nice. Hope you're going to like them Me Me and Nonna.

In case you are wondering how we achieved the look, blend brown and gold acrylic paint together and covered the canvases, letting some of the brush strokes show through. Then allow it to dry. Apply a gold wash - gold paint with a little bit of water. Allow to dry again. Take screaming baby's hand (only one at a time), place in paint, and try to press those little fingers flat or else you'll have to scrap the canvas because it looks like your child has a club hand. Paint name on front and date on back. The last step, which we'll do in the morning once it's dry, is apply some brown stain to give it an antique look.