Indoor Activities Day 13: Monochromatic Painting

*I will update soon on the winners of the The Money Saving Mom's Budget giveaway! I'm trying to work out a few technical kinks first, so stay tuned!*

I found this adorable painting project on Pinterest and thought it would be fun to try my own spin on it with Lula.  It evolved into a monochromatic painting project perfect for developing fine motor painting skills for my 3.5 year old.

We were reading Blueberries for Sal for preschool and talking about different shades of blue. I decided to try making a grid on the computer and printing it on cardstock. You could do this with pencil and then erase later if you really wanted it. But, I was pretty sure Lula wouldn't be able to stay inside all of the squares anyway, plus I didn't want to spend the time drawing all the squares.

Next, I mixed up some acrylic paint and water in different shades of blue.  We had light blue, teal, royal blue, gray blue..etc...

Then, I let Lula try to paint inside the squares with the different shades.

This little project really helped her learn how to properly hold the paintbrush and load it with paint.  I hadn't really worked on these skills with her before.  She really enjoyed it!

She just kept painting and rinsing and painting all the little squares...

It's definitely not as perfect as the example I found on Pinterest, but I think it's pretty cool

We actually did half one day and then finished it the next day.  Once she started to get bored with it, I knew the painting was complete!

I hope art projects are never forced activities and I try not to push these things. Here is the final little painting!

I think I might have to frame this one!



(please not that this post contains affiliate links)