Extreme Painting: Making Some Really Great Wrapping Paper

I’ve read many times in early childhood books about messy painting projects that involve enormous pieces of paper and tossing objects dipped in paint at them.  I’ve always meant to do that with the kidlets, but when I saw the idea of using those terrible little textured balls that are constantly popping up all over the place I was inspired.  First of all, those textured balls drive me batty.  They just seem so gross.  But the minute I saw kids dipping them in paint and throwing them at a big piece of paper, I knew it was the perfect use for those awful things.  I also knew a few kidlets who would think the project to be an excellent summer afternoon activity.

I knew the activity was going to messy.  I did not anticipate how gloriously messy, however. The balls roll like crazy after they splat on the paper, which means that they roll off the cardboard “floor” we put down, and onto the grass and driveway where they pick up leaves and rocks and all sorts of pine needles.  It took about ten seconds for the cardboard floor to become so slimy with paint that the kidlets pretended they were ice skating on it.  The paint really, really splatters when it hits the paper, so much that Squirmy, who was swinging in the baby swing on the other side of the swingset was even covered in paint splatters.  And my artist extraordinaires could not keep their wild hair away from the paint.  They were completely covered in a matter of minutes.

But oh, the textures!  The color mixing, even though we only used three different colors.  The joy of splatting paint onto paper with as much force as possible, even though it would only really take just a little bit of force to get a nice big splat.  The fun of slipping together and colliding with your sibling on a cardboard paint rink!  The tumbling!  The paint oozing in your toes and through your fingers and onto your face.  The laughter!  The fun of fingerpainting your face.  It was a joyous time.

In the end I took them around the corner to the hose and actually had them strip down to their underwear, and I literally hosed them down.  Mr. SP was even brave enough to stick his face right into the force of the hose to blast off the paint (it was a hot afternoon).  I sent them upstairs to the bathtub with strict orders not to touch anything on their way.  Thankfully, I had the foresight to try this activity when an extra parent was around for crowd control, and Dr. Peds could assist with shower management while I hosed the paint clothes down and took them to the basement to throw in the washing machine.

We aren’t sure whose present we will wrap in our paint-blast wrapping paper.  Keep your eyes open.