egg paint

 One of my summer goals to do with my kids are art projects.  I hope to expose them to a variety of mediums and allow them the freedom to create their own masterpieces.  My original intent is to do two projects a week with my big kids (ages seven and five) while their little sister takes a nap.  So far, during this first week of summer, I've managed to do one.  Time to step it up!

This first one was a lot of fun.  They got to learn a little about the Italian artist, Giotto, and the process that many artists had to go through to create their own paint.  We talked about how easy it is for us today to go to the store and pick out what kind of paint and what color of paint we want.  Artists in the past had to use berries, minerals and even bugs (my 5 year old son especially liked this fact) to create their paints.

We collected our colored sidewalk chalk and went to work making our own paint.  They used rocks to pound and grind down the chalk into a fine powder.  Through this they realized how hard it was to create paint and how precious it was back then.  

After the chalk was ground into a powder, we separated out an egg yolk, mixed it with a little water and then stirred a few drops of the egg mixture into each color of powdered chalk.

They got straight away to working on their masterpieces.  I loved seeing how each of them went about it.  My five year old immediately dipped his brush in and began on a truck.  My seven year old daughter on the other hand, had to think about it for a bit, and then got a pencil and sketched her work first before she began painting.

The end result!  One of the fun facts they learned about painting with egg tempura is that Giotto's works have lasted over 700 years - maybe Q.'s truck will be around that long.