alex and i painted together for the first time last night. i've always had this quaint image in my mind of painting with a child, them working on some small corner while i paint on the rest of the canvas. our experience was not quite like that. i spread two drop cloths on top of one another on the floor in the living room, got out my paint box, got some water and my rags and changed my clothes. alex mostly runs around naked, so i didn't have to worry about him getting paint on his clothes. i got a canvas and started spreading paint on it. alex came wandering in from the office where he was watching his father play video games to see what i was doing. then of course he began helping. his work was pretty good, but then i needed to figure out how to get the painting away from him in order to keep him from working ad infinitum and messing it all up. jon recommended that it needed more blue. i should never listen to jon. i saw what he was getting at, but once i gave alex some blue, he began to muck the whole thing up. so then i had to wipe most of the blue off and start over with pink and red and yellow to go back over it. eventually we both had paint in weird places on our bodies (neck, head, him all over his butt), so jon took alex kicking and screaming to the bathtub while i tracked paint onto the carpet (bottom of my foot) and then cleaned everything up.


alex examining his work