My girls love to mix and mash in their mud kitchen. I op shop for pots and pans, measuring jugs, mixing spoons, cups and bowls… anything that might inspire their love of mud pies!
I encourage mud kitchens because they are a great way to explore measurement, capacity and ratio.
Today, I directed their mud kitchen creations in a different direction. I sat down with them to make paint from the garden. Using colour from nature, some materials from the kitchen and a lot of fun and mess we created Mud Kitchen Masterpieces!
The children scavenged for colours. They found mud, dirt, rocks, flowers, stems, leaves and a beetroot. I added to this some supplies from the house. Tea, flour, eggs, charcoal and clove oil.
I showed the children how to separate the yolk from the egg white and then talked about how to create tempura paint, using the yolk. We discussed the ratio 1:1 and then mixed and experimented. To our tempura we added a few drops of clove oil, to help preserve the paint, but with the added benefit of making it smell amazing!
We also rubbed leaves and petals directly onto our pictures, made tea and beetroot water, mixed flour for a paste and and had fun seeing what made the best colours. It was all about fun and experimentation! I think the results were fantastic!
If you are looking for more natural painting inspiration, you might like The Organic Painter by Carne Griffiths.
This book is one of the great prizes in our Art and Photography Competition, get your entry form HERE. Entries close November 22, 2021.
If you would like to try Mud Kitchen Painting with your children, I highly recommend ‘Mont Marte’ Canvas Paper. It was robust enough to stand up to all our paint experiments!
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