Family Fingers Part ONE!!

This started off with me having a Michael's Craft Store coupon, a store sale and kids wanting to make a mess!  And the family- finger- painting-at- home- art- museum began!!! My kids won't have little fingers forever!
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We used NO brushes!  Hands only and a blank canvas which made it a huge hit to do together! The paint went directly from the bottle (they always went on sale $.75-$1.50 usually) to the canvas (wait for it to be on sale then use coupon as well, this one cost $11.  Now lets get started....

This one took a little longer and was a ton of fun!  We would do one color at a time, either after dinner or the afternoon, when you have about 1/2 hr or so doing little by little each day.  It goes quicker than you'd think!  Its the clean up that takes the 25 minutes!!

I placed the canvas on an old table cloth in the basement out of the way planning on it being out to dry for a few days.  Also put a big bowl of water on a chair with a towel so when kids were done, they just rinsed and dried hands off quickly (if you can catch them in time, yikes!)  No bathroom mess!

Day 1- Take a ton of different blues and white paints and let them pour out & smudge, smear it all over the canvas. Leave to dry.
Day 2- Greens & Browns, fingers only!  Just so they had an idea... I drew with my finger the brown tree trunk & green grass outlines so they tried to stay in that area with their own hands.  You can tell a couple fingers got a little crazy ;)
Day 3- Yellows, Oranges, a little white. Make the sun. (not too much orange or the fingerprints won't show)
Day 4- Purple, pinks, whatever colors you'd like for flowers on top of the bottom grass.
Day 5- Fingerprints!!!  If each child would like to pick a color paint directly on their hands and rub them together to fully cover fingers for the hand print (or use a Styrofoam plate for them to use).

My husband and I were the "roots", Cameron "the sun", first born, ha!, My girls were the flowers and Maximus, our grand finale was the clouds, cause he's all over the place. haha!!  Once it dried, I took puffy paints and put their name and ages on each hand print.  On the bottom, I wrote, "The Schneider Family Tree 2011"

What a great way to cherish their hand prints for years to come!!  A step more if you'd like; Take a family picture with the finished art piece and keep it on the back of the canvas or glue it on the corner of the canvas to see how they've grown each year!!
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Below are 2 canvases that I would put up and take down all the time.  Anytime the girls wanted to paint with brushes, I took down the existing canvas that I hung in their playroom, and let them paint over it again and again however they'd like.  

(16 x 20 a larger canvas but workable space, where they can sit down and do it vs. a larger canvas that they have to get up and walk around to paint...just keeping it clean ;))

They used all different paints (I started stocking on sale canvas' and paints; puffy, fabric, crayola, etc.)  The ones on the left have a little more texture to them because of the puffy paints they'd squirt on and I loved the "final" look of it.  That is when I took out 2 new canvases for them to start over on.  I would let them pick just  3-4 colors each time otherwise it turns into a dodo brown blob.  Don't forget to have them autograph & date the bottom when they start!  Its their work of art always on display and ready to change whenever they feel their creative side sneaking out!  Love it!

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"Growing Together 2012" puffy painted on the center canvas,
Marks Left hand, My Right hand (the woman is always right ;) with white & red colors.

1st have each child pick 2 different colors.
2nd Cover entire 8x10 canvas with ONE color, let dry.

Keep bowl of water & towel close by for clean up!

3rd, after canvas dries, paint each hand a different color and help them make their hand print!

4th, each childs name and ages are fabric or puffy painted below each hand print! 

*or use a permanent marker and let them write their name and age below it!

(The year is on the center canvas with the parents hand prints.)

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Comment below what your next Family Finger Canvas will be!