Rainbows without Boarders

(4 Years)

I love freestyle kiddie art.  I love the uninhibited expression, the broad strokes, the carefree choice of colors.  I didn't always love freestyle kiddie art.  When they were younger, I would become so frustrated that they didn't create the art like the beautiful ones that I saw on those creative mommy blogs and the ones my nephew brings home from daycare.  Why can't I have handprints turned into a flower?  Then, I just accepted the fact that they are going to paint what they want to paint and if they are painting my ideas, I might as well do the painting myself.

Today we made rainbows, using cotton balls instead of paint brushes (holding the clothes pin with the cotton ball attached helps to train their hands to use a tripod grasp - perfect muscle memory training for holding a pencil correctly).  I was going to draw a rainbow and then invite them to paint it with the respective colors, but then I decided to see what it would look like if THEY created their own rainbow.  My idea, was to have them cover the entire page in color.  Paint straight across with the colors slightly overlapping.  However, I just asked them to paint a rainbow.  I didn't give any other instruction.  They both decided on painting a traditional arc rainbow.

I love the results.

After we finished our rainbows, they asked to keep painting.  Now for completely unstructured painting.  Wild One painted picture after picture, asking for sheet after sheet of paper.  Little Miss made sure she filled in every bit of white space available.

Now we are just waiting for them to dry so that I can hang them up!