pumpkin painting

This past year, while setting up some art projects for my students at Birchtree, I found a love for painters tape and it's ability to let me manipulate a canvas while still letting my little artists paint to their heart's content.  While I haven't done anything as brilliant as last year's masterpiece, O and I have been getting into the October spirit by painting some pumpkins.

Classroom One student art :: Birchtree 2016

I bought a bunch of sugar pumpkins for fall decor around the house.  When I'd originally set out to do this project, I planned on using some leftover white paint from our recent house painting adventures.  Though I loved the idea of painting our pumpkins white, I was still in love with the orange, and torn on what to do.  

Cue crayola and their all-things-washable line of art supplies.  And bonus - I figure, after Halloween, one of our projects can be cleaning the paint off the pumpkins!

Using painters tape, I cut out some pumpkin face shapes and stuck them on the pumpkins.  Though I'm sure O would've enjoyed sticking them on, stickers aren't really her strong point yet, but I imagine in a year or so that she would really like doing this again, but with that added job.  She has really enjoyed painting the pumpkins though, and we've managed to make this a several day project - partially because the paint is thin and I want these pumpkins to be really, really white.  The hardest part (for O... and myself) has been not pulling off the painters tape for the big reveal.

Once they were dry, Ollie kindly peeled off the tape.  Some of the paint definitely came off during the peeling process, but it was washable paint, so I didn't expect it to stick all too well...

And here they are.  I'm really happy with how they turned out, and I think they'll add just the right amount of spooky to our subdued decor this year.