Finale

It took a few weeks waiting for a good time to concentrate and it took a couple of trips over here to finish, but the girls have worked on their square on the wall and it's finished.  There was a little discussion about there being one square and two girls with very different ideas but we discussed and settled on a design.   In the beginning Adelaide wanted to split the square and let them each do their own because she wanted a unicorn on hers.  "Nope," I said, "no unicorns."  Elizabeth wanted a turtle.
I decided this was going to look primitive. Like one of those samplers you find in attics done by a girl just learning.  I was good with it. 

 The first step was donning a couple of my paint shirts and painting the background.  It took a lot of mixing to get just the right color.  This was tapping into Elizabeth's expertise.  She can see the right color in something.  Adelaide got a little heavy handed on the paint but I had plenty of blue left for fixes.  It all worked in the end and they had fun.  Done and done.

 After the paint dried I had them over again to draw their design on.  We decided on a garden that had butterflies (the compromise for unicorns) and a pond to put the turtle in.

 This is classic textbook Elizabeth.  Concentration.  Knowing what she wants.  Keeping Adelaide out of her way while she worked on her pond.

 This week promised a lot of rain off and on, school, soccer practices, so last Sunday afternoon while the sun was shining  I had them here to finish their painting.  Elizabeth thought these cans of very expensive paint were like candy and her focus was on making lots of interesting mixes.  I saw dollars going down the drain so let her do just one concoction.

 While Adelaide was painting her sunflower and stem she said, "I'm glad we were chosen."  I asked what she meant and she said, "I'm glad we were chosen to be the ones to paint on your wall." 

 They actually knew to use two different greens!

 And then Adelaide saw my white paint shirt as a blank canvas and they went to work.  Notice my heart tatoo. 

 I could feel the paint leaching onto my skin on my back. 

 Other than Adelaide's butterfly, they finished their picture.

This is also textbook Elizabeth.  She painted cattails on her pond.  She does go for the detail!

And there they are.  That's water on their clothes, not paint.  I had to take a good scrubbing on Adelaide's good patent leather shoes, but as Elizabeth likes to say when they do something here, "Don't tell mom!"