Painting with Tea

  It was an experiment I did with the girls on a day when we just couldn’t get out of the house. I looked through the pantry for all the different kinds of teas I’d unknowingly collected over the years.
  There was the peppermint tea, which didn’t have much color but the taste and smell was something I thought they would notice. There was the raspberry tea I got at the end of my first pregnancy because I heard it could start labor. It made water a pretty red color and worked great as “paint.”
  There was the plain old Lipton tea that I had a ton of, and it made different shades of brown depending on how long you let it steep. And then there was the green  tea, which, yeah you know.
I set out the girl’s plastic tea set, some extra cups and some old empty baby food jars. They dipped the tea bags in each of them, mixed the different colored waters, and wiped the tea bags on paper to make some what turned out to be some pretty strokes of color. All in all it was a really great experiment and they loved it. Was a bit messy but go figure. Will definitely do it again sometime. until then I need to browse through all the different kinds/colors of teas out there.

Paint

I’ve never met children so fascinated by paint before. Is this of my doing? Am I like subconsciously forcing them to obsess over paint? They wake up and want to paint, they paint rocks, their finger nails, paint each other, paint in the bath tub, hell I bet if I let them they would paint the cat. The other day without thought I started serving lunch to Violet before taking her paint brush away, and she started painting her blueberries!
Is it out of boredom? Freedom of expression?? Control over a substance that I’m pretty sure they don’t even completely understand yet…?  Maybe they will be artists when they grow up or maybe this is just a typical phase of all toddlers and I’m just blowing things out of proportion like I always do. It’s fucking paint. Although I’m sure there are some crazy art majors out there thinking oh no lady, paint is more than just a medium, it’s a tool used to let the soul out on paper! Maybe, and if that’s so, what are they saying with this paint? Should I be concerned that sometimes I see things in the paintings, or is that my dysfunction? I don’t know. Paint is paint and they’re kids and its fun.

Apple tree by Violet