The art of Rocks

While we were installing the new herb bed out front, we found these giant rocks. I didn't know what to do with them at first, so I did what anyone trying not to make a decision about something does, I put it aside.

Rocks from the garden

Fast forward a bit over 2 months. Pooka asked if we could paint the giant rocks like she had seen in one of her gardening books. They talked about painting smaller rocks, but I figured the project would scale. The first thing I did was draw some pictures on it with a paint pen. Pooka was worried she couldn't draw the shapes right, so I drew what she told me to and we had to let it dry. My camera puked about this point, so I don't have a picture, but I only drew outlines for her with a paint pen. This effectively gave her something close to a coloring book to paint.

Then Pooka got to paint it. I let her use any of my craft paints she wanted, and she had a blast. As most kids her age, she did have a hard time staying inside the lines. I told her it was okay, and to have fun with it.

Pooka's painting is done.

 After Pooka's paint was dry, I went over the picture again with the paint pen. This step hid alot of the oops moments and gave it a cleaner look.

Paint pen coat 2.

Pooka decided to paint her name onto the second rock. So I cannot show you the entire rock, but she did a wonderful job with the dragonfly, so I am showing you that part.

 

The dragonfly she made

Once everything was dry, I took them outside and gave them a couple coats of varnish.

Varnishing the rocks

After the varnish was dry, Pooka placed her rocks in the front herb bed. The butterfly flower rock (complete with a few green peas) went into the lower bed next to one of her purple sage plants. The dragonfly rock (That I couldn't seem to get a good picture of) is hanging out with the garlic. Not bad for a project that was done with stuff just laying around the yard. Although Pooka is already asking to paint some of her smaller rock collection. At least it will help me try to balance art and science together.

Rocks new home