Grammy on the Go
By Karen Shadrach
Our winter season has brought us quite a bit of snow so far this year. With all the home schooling and staying indoors, let’s get outside for some fresh air to enjoy the snow with the grandkids and share some fun!
Let’s try snow painting! All that’s required are a few spray bottles plus some food coloring, and you’re all set. Mother Nature will provide the snow! If you enjoy painting, this is a fun winter activity. It’s definitely a less exertive one than sled riding! Both you and your grandkids can experiment with colors in the snow to create a new form of art.
I discovered that I had one good spray bottle at home, but found a few more at the local dollar store. You can use spray bottles, or the squeeze bottles you’d use for ketchup/mustard containers. Fill these with water, and then add enough food coloring so that the colors will show up on the snow and not be diluted. I make up a total of three bottles (red, blue and yellow) and then let the kids combine the colors in the snow to create purple, green and orange. It makes a great activity for them to learn their primary and secondary colors.
The grandkids can draw whatever they like in the snow free-hand, or you can make stencils for them to spray around and fill in with the same or different color. Make easy stencils, such as circles and squares. They can create snowmen from stenciling the circles or robots from the squares.
Limiting your painting area by drawing a rectangle on the snow first is a good idea, since you have the entire yard as your canvas! After painting your picture, you can then “frame” it by placing sticks on each of the sides.
In addition to drawing directly on the snow, the grandkids can build a snow sculpture, (small snowman or animal) and then paint those with many colorful combinations.
If the food coloring is too pale and you want a deeper color, you can use tempera paints (powder or liquid) and wider paint brushes for your snow painting. Use one bottle per paint color you wish to use. Also, use a light touch to keep paint on the very top of the snow surface. This technique is not easy, and I would recommend it for an older grandchild, maybe 10 or older.
Our grandkids have decided to make an outdoor art museum. They used the spray bottle painting technique to draw pictures (mostly modern art!) in stick-and-snow-made frames in the front yard. These were interspersed with snow sculptures and then spray painted. When completed, we asked our neighbors to come and view their art work. Unfortunately, this art museum cannot stay open too long, as it’s supposed to be 40 degrees outside tomorrow!
Remember to take pictures of the snow art before its melts away. Clean-up for this project is easy. Just wait for the snow to melt and the next rainfall to wash it all away…
