Worth the Mess

My girls love to pull out the watercolors to paint. Carolyn probably the very most, but Melanie really loves to too. Yesterday Carolyn created three wonderful messes, one, a rainbow of paint drips from the kitchen sink to the kitchen table, that I really wish I had taken a picture of. Another was a tipped over cup of paint water, very gray and not nearly as pretty as the rainbow all over the floor. Thank goodness watercolors are super easy to clean up.

Lately Melanie has started painting outdoor scenes, even looking outside to see what she sees and trying to paint it. The other day it was very gray outside and she had a great start on a yucky looking sky when Carolyn decided to help her. Melanie didn't appreciate that and it went in the garbage.

Today Melanie was painting a darkish blue sky. I was on the phone for a minute when I turned and saw her splattering paint onto her paper, and thought it was just beautiful. When I got off the phone I stopped her so I could ask her about what she was doing. She reminded me that we'd been looking at a book that had some paint splatters as part of the pictures, and said she was just trying that. I told her it looked like a stormy day, with rain coming out of the dark sky. She looked at the picture again and just beamed when she saw it too.


I don't care how clean you like your house to be. Things like this are definitely worth the mess.