painting pinecones pretty!

Being an Oma has its perks. I like to create, yet while sewing or knitting seem to have useful functions with the end result being quite wearable, painting does not have quite the same appeal to other members of my family. They roll their eyes slightly and give their sibling an unobtrusive nudge as if to say 'lets humour mum and agree its time well spent'. So having a grandchild, gives me any number of reasons to pull out paint, brushes and paper and spend several hours in a blissful state of colour with an equally enthusiastic fellow artist!

I often have our Small Elf here for extended 'visits' and as often as we have time for, we paint.* Of course, this gives me a valid reason to spend the afternoon playing with colour too and if possible, I always say YES to her request! She has been painting with me for over 12 months now and its become a bit of a tradition we do together whenever she stays. She started off with a cheap spiral bound art journal type book, which she has nicely filled up with lots of thick pages of brightly coloured painted masterpieces! We have since moved on to large pieces of butchers paper and an old credit card to move the paint around and just last week she came with a new idea……lets paint pinecones pretty!

There are quite a few old pine trees on our land, so the usual size pine cones are easy to come by. The Small Elf brought along some sweet little pine cones from a Douglas fir in the local park, so we prettied up a few of each, using cheap student grade acrylic paint. Its amazing the difference a bit of colour makes to an otherwise drab object and although student grade paints are not super pigment rich, they still give a nice splash of 'bright' and loads of satisfaction to the little one….and even to a visiting friend! While she was busy with hers, I sketched and water coloured some of the small cones in my lovely new journal and feel quite pleased with the result.

If you are in Australia, try finding a supplier of Mont Marte art products. Their acrylics are cheap (I buy mine from one of those junk shops), they last a long time and the pigment is not too bad. And its such a great way for children to express their creativity because anything goes!

* her mama isn't always enthused with our art dates because sometimes we forget to change from 'good' clothes to paint clothes…oops!