Day of Art

Okay, I'm going to try it again.  I have tried to blog before in the past and found I don't like writing and I always fall behind.  Still, the kids and I have so much fun that I want somewhere that I can record all our adventures.  So, here goes nothing.

My family and I live in what I would consider the best area for having fun with kids, Washington DC. We live in the land of free museums. Not only are they free, but they are amazing. Today, we adventured to the National Gallery of Art. I will admit we go to a lot of museums, but I tend to avoid art museums because the thought of going with a two-year-old doesn't seem very interesting for him or enjoyable for me.  Yesterday we decided to give it a try.  So off we trudged down the mall.

The first thing that we found was this fantastically beautiful fountain.

C loves fountains and loved walking around this one and touching all the plants.  This one was even better for Mama since it was inside, so A and I stayed warm.  There are actually a few fountains in the museum and trust me we explored each one.

One of the big exhibits currently at the museum for its final week is Dega's Little Dancer.  I figured if anything was going to capture C's attention a sculpture was our best shot.  I picked up the pamphlet on the exhibit and handed it to C.  I told him we were looking for the statue of the little girl in the skirt.  He did a great job looking as we wondered trying to find the Little Dancer.

At last we found her and she was beautiful.  

C and I talked about her skirt and counted her buttons. There are six of them if you're interested.  We walked around and looked at her from every angle and talked about how she had a ponytail like Mama.

Next, it was time for lunch.  As we headed to find a place to eat I asked C to pick a color.  He chose green, so I then asked him to find a picture with green in it.  The first picture he found was nude reclining on a grean and yellow stripped chair.  Once he caught on to the game it was quite a fun.  My favorite picture he found was Vase with Roses by Van Gogh.

It was so green and so bright.  When we made it home we decided to try to make our own version.  I have been trying to interest C in art, so it seemed like a good opportunity.  I printed out a copy of the picture and put it on the wall for him to look at while we painted.

To make the background we started by marble painting using shaving cream.

C helped by spreading the shaving cream out in the cookie sheet.

Next we dropped in a couple shades of green paint and food coloring.

C took a straw and stirred the colors in with the shaving cream.  I let him mix it too much at first and all of the shaving cream turned a light green so I had to add a little more color and shaving cream and we only swirled it a little.

C carefully placed the paper on top and the thoroughly enjoyed smashing the paper down.

I scraped off the shaving cream and C made 3 more prints, then took a nap to give his marble paintings a chance to dry.

I cut out and had C glue down a brown vase.  

To make the leaves in the painting we put some dark green paint on a plate and C used a crumpled up piece of paper as a stamp.

The final step were the white roses.  We used balled up pieces of tissue paper that C dipped in glue on a plate and put on the picture.

C was so proud and asked that we put it up in the wall right away so he could show his Daddy.

To finish off our day we put on some  classical ballet music and danced like Dega's Little Dancer.  Per C this required 2 ribbons each.  I give you our version of Swan Lake.

We had a great day and will definitely be adding the art museam to our regular museum rotation.