Saturday, June 28, 2008

Trash art

Yesterday Will had a minor meltdown after I vetoed his proposal to paint his wooden blocks. Once he’d recovered from the agonizing disappointment of not getting to follow through with that scheme, he agreed that it might instead be fun to paint other objects destined for the recycling bin (and not likely to be mouthed on by Owen in the near future).

Will used tempera paint, crayons, glue, yarn and masking tape to construct this “house” made of a plastic milk jug, a paper-covered cereal box, a veggie burger box, some beverage bottles, a vitamin container and a deconstructed box of baby wipes. Now I’m finding it difficult to put anything in the trash. I just saved a toilet paper roll and a wine bottle cork in case Will's house needs extra chimneys or something as well as a squeeze bottle of lemon juice for a temporary bath toy.

What strange stuff do you turn into art or toys?

3 comments:

April said...

Lucy has had some doozy of art projects in the past, but these days she does lots with flowers from the yard (including dandelions which I'm afraid creep in there). She makes bouquets of course, but also she artfully arranges them on paper, presses them in books, and frequently snacks on the edible ones too (flowers of herbs, geraniums, calendula). It is a pleasant phase - slightly more aesthetically pleasing to me than the art she's made out of items fished out of the garbage... And it all biodegrades pretty rapidly...

Annie Addington said...

Ah nature art. We took an "umbrella walk" in a light rain the day after Will's not so aesthetically pleasing art adventure and he found some leaves and exfoliated crape myrtle bark and sticks to add to his "house." And now it's really just looking funkier than ever. Pressed flowers would be lovely.

shannon said...

Nora made a boat sculpture out of a large water bottle, complete with bamboo skewer flag beautifully decorated with some insignia. When she was Will's age, the paper towel roll was the uncarved wood for her. She'd tape them, cut them, sparkle them and paint them. Cavan always goes for the nature art and yesterday made a yellow leaf-twig necklace that I was happy to don all day.