Painting Snow

 
 
Painting snow to make winter more colorful!

 (E was 28 months old.)

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You’ll need:



How it worked for us:

In another burst of early morning creativity, E asked to paint even before breakfast.

As I was setting out the paint, I remembered how we spray-painted snow a while back, and had the idea of trying to paint snow with a paintbrush this time.

While I was thinking this, E remembered another activity we’d done (and revisited a few times) and started talking about shoveling snow.

Her idea had her getting dressed for the cold very quickly but once she figured out what I’d been planning, she was even more excited about my idea.

I put some Tempera paint in our muffin tin and added a baker’s brush to paint with.

Muffin tin with Tempera paint and baker's brush.

{Yes, I offered white paint, and E seemed quite fond of it ;)}

E got right to painting the snowman she’d made with Grandpa two days earlier.

{It had already melted some, then frozen during the night, so it made a nice firm surface for painting.}

Loading the brush with paint.
Painting  the snowman.

For a little variety, she painted the snow on the table, proving that you don’t actually need a lot of snow if you want to paint it, a light covering will do in a pinch.

Painting snow on the table.

E then took a break to get some snow shoveling in,

A break from painting.

{Wondering how much fun shoveling snow can possibly be? Check out our past activity!}

before restarting her snow painting efforts using more colors than before.

Painting the snowman again.
 
She tried some finger painting
 
Finger painting the snow.

but preferred to go back to using her brush.

She kept asking for green, so I mixed the yellow and blue I’d put into one of the muffin cups for her, and she enthusiastically used it at the base of the snowman.

Painting the snowman green.

The brush took quite a beating but while it’s obviously not made for this kind of intense painting, it held up pretty well.

Squishing a water pearl.

The paint spattered enough to leave some beautiful patterns in the snow.

Paint spatter in the snow.

And this is what our snowman looked like after about 30 minutes of outdoor fun.

Painted snowman.

Edit: Several hours later, the look had changed quite a bit as the temperatures stayed slightly above freezing – making most of the colors even more vibrant (the green didn’t fare so well).

Painted snowman at temperatures above freezing.

I’d left the paint out to freeze for a different sensory activity I’d been planning but given the temperatures, that didn’t really pan out. For the most part, the paint simply dried up.

Remaining paint.

 



What I learned:

  • Tempera on snow works great.
  • A baker’s brush makes a nice wide paintbrush.

 



Additional suggestions:

  • Use different kinds of paint.
  • Decorate the snow with glitter, sequins, plastic gems, etc.



 

Have you tried painting snow? What technique did you use? Tell me in the comments!

 

 

 

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