chalk paint graffiti: a happy welcome home

Last summer, Maddy came home from an overnight at her Aunt Mary’s house dancing and singing about how Aunt Mary taught her to use chalk.

Knowing that Aunt Mary IS all things cool to my girls, I knew that whatever they did must have been pretty awesome.  Maddy went on and on and on about how Aunt Mary let her paint with this ‘special kind of paint chalk’ and that she made footprints and handprints and it was sototallyawesome.

We kind of put it on the back burner until much later–months later, in fact–when one random day after school, Maddy started to make the ‘chalk paint’ that Aunt Mary taught her to make.

I’m not sure if it was an intentional lesson or if it happened on the spur of the moment lesson from Aunt Mary, but I watched Maddy very carefully make a thick, heavy mixture from a pile of chalkdust,  ‘Just like when I did it with Aunt Mare’, she explained.   Mom, this is going to be so cool–just wait.

And it really was.

Here’s the skinny. . .

• Chalk Paint Graffiti: Really, chalk paint graffiti turned out to be chalk paint handprints on our doorstep gone craaaa-zy, and you know what?  I loved them.

I loved, loved, loved them.

Maddy and one of her buddies mixed enough chalk paint in several batches one afternoon.  Very carefully, they scribbled with chalk very hard in one spot, making a pile of chalkdust. 

They made me smile for days and days–and they lasted for days and days and days and days.

How pretty are these handprints?

And then they’d add water and mix it with a stick.  They’d spread the chalkdust paste-paint all over their hands, and they’d stamp their hands on the cement.

All over, in every color of the rainbow, they scribbled, mixed, spread, and stamped. Scribbled, mixed, spread, and stamped.  Until our front walk was a gorgeous, happy welcome canvas of tiny hands.

Beautiful. Gorgeous. Lovely.

Not a whole lot of sneaky learning, but there was a whole lot of free-bird creativity flowing and outdoor art happening, and I’ll take that–and a proud little artist whose hearts were full of thoughts of their awesome aunt–any day of the week.   Happy chalk painting!