Saturday Chillin at Home...

Ben's cough is still hanging in, so we're taking it easy today...Ben and I went to the library this morning, both to borrow a book and a video, and to pay the shocking (but well-deserved) fines we owed for books and videos that we kept through most of July while we were at camp with Muz and D (the sweet lol at the library apologized profusely to me for the $14 fine, as if she were robbing us reluctantly)...

We also went shopping this morning, and to the Dollar Store (next to the market that will always be the Grand Union, or grunion, to me...I literally cannot fix the new name in my head)...

In and amongst the other stuff that we got and running into people that I work with and running into the Buerketts, Ben asked for, and received, an el cheapo watercolor set (it cost...wait for it...$1.08)...we got home and woke Mommy up to show her the fruits of our labor (she's feeling a little under the weather, and is treating her ailments with some couch therapy (supplemented by B&W movies and cat-walking-on-your-back massages)...

After mommy went back to sleep, Ben and I got down to some serious watercolor...I laid out a long sheet of actual newsprint (I walk into the local newspaper and ask for a "roll-end", and they happily load me down with 3 partial rolls of newsprint, 2 go to my classroom and 1 comes home for moments such as these), and we dug in...Ben was a good sport, even in the face of horrific water coloring materials...Winslow Homer could never have painted "The Adirondack Guide" if he had been saddled with this set (he might have squeezed out a doggie or kitty or rainbow, but not much else)...the colors were oily and resistant to water, they all tended to the dingy end of the spectrum, and the brushes were stiff as wire...

Rising to meet the challenges before him, Ben worked hard to moisten the tiny disks of paint, and to break-in the brushes...to not much avail...

yes, I was online with the Zombie Squad while we were art-ing it up

He did however have a great time mixing and making new colors and experimenting with drying times for different colors and wetnesses...

I love the way that he holds his paintbrush, and the serious way that he approaches his fun, and the laugh he busts out with when he spills the cup of rinse-water, and the thousand different color names that he comes up with for what all look to me like monkey-vomit green (to be fair, there were numerous shade of monkey-vomit on the sheet, some were bluer or more orange or lighter or darker)...

I've promised him a better watercolor set, but he (we) had a fun time with what he had...modifying the activity to match the materials without even thinking about it...he's so great!!!