I've heard of starving artists, but never an artist that eats paint ;).
So let me tell you about painting in the living room. You have to be pretty relaxed about mess if you allow this. You'll also need a plastic cover/sheet to protect your carpet from the worst of the spills and to let your child go half naked or wear an old top they've outgrown; it's going to get messy.
Roman successfully managed to cover himself in blue paint, make a right royal mess and work out some frustrations through painting. When he started to get annoyed with his toys, I decided it might be the time to let him paint this morning. Well, it worked out very well. As soon as the easel and paints were out his frustration cloud disappeared, replaced with this big smile. I was a very happy mum at this sight, very happy indeed.
The fact that the mess left in his trail was strenuous to clean up and a bath required to wash down the boy I didn't mind and I surprised myself with the ease of how much of a damn I didn't give about cleaning up the mess. Not that I'll be in much of a hurry to paint in the living room like this again, but I'm okay with mess - I suppose I have to be and that there will be a time in my life where I can have breakables below eye level and walls without paint on them...but I know when that day comes I will be wishing for these days; days where paint was consumed, days when I painted my hand blue and splatted it onto a clean piece of paper and Roman (and Bryan) followed suit, days where I spent a while scrubbing blue marks out of our landlord's carpet ;) and days where impromptu painting put this smile on Roman's face.
