Ocean Mural

Last week Monkey finished up his last sea creature for our ocean mural. We've been making all kinds of underwater animals for months now, with the end goal of having them all up on display together. Today was finally the day that we painted the ocean and glued all our creatures together!

Supplies: butcher paper, blue paint, foam roller and mini tray, drop cloth

I knew I had to come up with a way for Monkey to paint the ocean quickly since I wanted it to be pretty big. We used a mini paint roller a few months ago for some work around the house and ever since then I've had my eye on it for this project. Monkey has seen his Daddy using it, so I knew he'd be thrilled to get a chance to use it, too. We also ended up using some extra wall paint that was leftover from Peanut's room, but I would have just bought a big bottle of blue children's paint otherwise. 

I got everything set up for Monkey and crossed my fingers that the drop cloth would contain the mess..

As predicted, he couldn't believe that he was going to use the roller. While it was still clean he was rolling it all over the paper to practice. 

I explained how to use the paint tray and then Monkey got started. 

He started sitting down but wasn't really strong enough to do it that way. He had a little more success standing up, but I did have to help a bit, too. 

Before long we had the whole paper painted blue. 

Well then Monkey had an amazing idea! He told me that we needed to have some sand on the bottom so that the crab and lobster could sit on it. I certainly couldn't say no to that. We could have painted the bottom of the paper brown... but I we've been working on this for months and I wanted to go all out. So we got all our winter clothes on and trudged out to the backyard to get some sand out of the shed. 

Once the paint was completely dry I grabbed some glue and a foam brush to spread it around. 

Monkey squeezed some glue onto the paper and then spread it around with the foam brush. 

We actually ended up doing two coats of sand because after our first attempt it looked like a sad excuse for an ocean floor. So we did it again overtop and put on a ton of glue and a ton of sand. 

After the second try it looked thick and even and I was so proud of Monkey for suggesting the sand. It added so much texture to the flat blue paper. 

Now we were ready to add all the beautiful sea creatures. 

We used white glue to attach them onto the ocean. Monkey picked where to put each animal. 

Now Monkey's ocean mural is hanging in the hallway. He proudly shows it off to anyone who comes over and touches and talks to it when he walks by. 

I wonder if we have time for another mural of a different habitat before I go back to work...? :)

Mar