Lots of Dots by Olive Link

I am not going to lie, I want to be artistic. I envy those of you who can paint and draw and create. I have the creative gene, but not the true artist gene and I have always wanted to have it. (In elementary school, I wanted so badly to be in "Honor's Art" which was a special art club that met at lunch with the art teacher once a week. But to get in, you had to submit a drawing and since I can't draw to save my soul, I didn't get in. I even cheated and traced a picture to try to get accepted, but they could tell I was cheating. This has been a life long dream!) At school, I always loved doing creative projects with my kids. It has always amazed me how they can turn simple things into beautiful creations because they aren't afraid to take risks! I want to pass on my love of artistic things to Olive and the poor girl has had more than her fair share of forced painting projects in her life.
But, she has been asking to paint for awhile now. She got to paint special boxes for Father's day presents, so keeps saying "Ollie paint box" everytime we go to the basement and she sees the paint. I had decided last year to have her do a painting every year around her birthday. Her first masterpiece was completed during the time when she hated having anything wet on her hands, so it wasn't quite as much fun as this year. I let her pick out the colors she wanted to use and she went to town covering the whole canvas with pink.

We had to have a little talk about how to go "back and forth, back and forth" to make the brush strokes and she caught on really quickly.
I have to say, I was shocked that she was able to cover so much of it by herself! We didn't do any of it!

I was really wanting to do something with polka dots because she loves them right now. Anytime she wears something with polka dots, she likes to point out her "circles" to anyone and everyone who may act interested. I asked her if she wanted to use her fingers, which was of course a no go, so for the dark purple dots, she used the base of a marker. I showed her how to do one and then she was off!

I wanted the dots to be different sizes, so we used the laundry soap cup for the green dots. She really liked slamming it down onto the canvas. I think she liked the thud noise it made.
Next up was light purple. We used the lid on the paint for this one. She got really busy putting lots of little purple dots.

Waiting for it to dry was a big bummer, but she was so excited to show off the finished product today! We hung both of her masterpieces in her room above her crib. She keeps walking in her room and saying "Ollie's paintings. So pretty!" I think she is right, they are so pretty!