Finger Painting Artwork

I was looking through all my pins on Pinterest the other day, trying to find my next project to work on and this birthday artwork project seemed to jump out at me:

Way back in March of 2012, Julia from 551 east, let her two year old paint on a canvas for his birthday. The caption under my pin mentioned taping a number on the canvas and then letting your child paint. That way you can peel off the number afterwards and have artwork that shows how old they were when they made it.

And I just loved the idea so much and with Lion's birthday was creeping up, I knew this would be a fun project to do with him. I really wish I had found this when Blue was turning one, but I'm glad that I can do this for Lion. (And make Blue his own canvas to paint on too!)

Experiment

Have the kids paint some birthday number artwork

Results

I used two 14x11 canvases because I had a couple of spare ones laying around. (The size of your canvas doesn't really matter. I just like the size of a 14x11 canvas. Its big but not too big).

Okay I suppose there are a couple of different ways to put the number on the canvas. You can either get number stickers or you can use painter's tape and cut out the numbers yourself.

I went with the painters tape and covered my canvas. I measured out both numbers (I started with the 1 because it was easier to modify and easier to figure out what dimensions  I wanted to work with before I moved onto the 3).

One I liked the number I used a razor blade and cut off the excess tape. And then I sealed my letters with white paint along the edges (and because I cut a little too deep on the 3. So I put a little packing tape on the back and painted over it to build up a surface to paint on).

All right that's all the prep work. Its time to bring on the finger painting!

(I guess you could go with homemade finger paint. I went with Crayola finger paints because I knew they would last over time).

I laid out some brown rolled paper to protect my floors, stripped Lion down to his diaper and put Blue into a white shirt and let them go at it.

Lion was a natural and wanted to stick his hands into the paint before I could even get all the colors out. And thankfully my mom was there to help him get the paint to his canvas.

        

Blue (who is barely pictured because he was in the beginning stages of potty training and wouldn't wear underwear yet and I wouldn't let him wear a diaper anymore, so I really didn't want his bare butt all over the internet) had the opposite approach. He liked getting all the colors onto his canvas and then mixing them all together.

And while I was cleaning up the boys my mom did a little touch up work (especially to Blue's gray mess) to the paintings. And then they were left to dry for the rest of the day.

Once they were dry I pealed off the numbers

Conclusion

We just made these on Sunday, so I haven't quite figure out where I want to hang them in the house yet. I keep putting them up and moving them, but nothing seems right. So once I figure that all out (its going to be a while), I'll post a picture. That way you can see them in all there glory.

Other than that, I cannot stop thinking wonderful things about this project. It was so easy to put everything together and the boys had so much fun making a mess and it's always fun to get the kids involved with projects. 

My favorite part is that you don't have to use numbers or do this just on a birthday. Its a fun project to do anytime throughout the year. And you can tape off whatever you want underneath (name, date, shapes, etc.) It really is a perfect project that kids will love to do.