Art in the bathtub

Here’s a suggestion for an alternative canvas for your child’s next painting project:

the bathtub.

A couple days ago, I helped Will mix together a half batch of a recipe for bathtub finger paints that I found in “The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions,” which Will got from one of his great grandmothers for Christmas. We added red food coloring, the only food coloring I had on hand, and Will stripped down to his bare naked self and painted stick figures, snakes and other undecipherable squiggly lines all around the tub. He used a paint brush instead of his fingers but any method would work.

Rob thought it looked like a murder scene, but Will thought it was a most joyous experience. And cleaning the stuff of with a wash cloth seemed to entertain him as much as the painting itself.

Here’s the recipe (which apparently also works fine as a traditional finger paint for paper):

1/3 cup clear, liquid dish detergent
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
Food coloring

Mix detergent and cornstarch together in a small bowl. Pour the mixture, in equal parts, into several sections of a plastic ice cube tray. Add 1 to 2 drops of food coloring to each section of the tray and mix with a small spoon.