Oat-rageous Orange Oat Painting

After Kingston played with oats the other day, I scooped up the remaining oats to do an art project with. I have playing around with the idea of creating some kind of oat paint recently. I wasn't sure if I should just combine paint and oats, or possibly add glue. I wanted to create a sensory process art experience using a material that is generally not used to paint with. I settled on just combining the paint with the oats. I chose orange because we haven't used it recently. AND it just so happened to allow for a really cool post title!

I combined the two mediums until it formed a wet orange oatmeal. I put a big scoop onto the paper in front of Kingston and waited to see what he would do. He smooshed his hands into the concoction with the funniest perplexed look on his face. 

He moved it around the paper, feeling the texture of the sticky oats. I pointed out the color orange.

After smearing it around a bit, K started grabbing big clumps of the mixture and smooshing it between his hands and squeezing it through his fingers. This is when the activity got a little tricky. Kingston wanted desperately to put this mixture in his mouth. Technically, it is made from an edible food, but I was too keen on him purposely ingesting handfuls of fingerpaint. The first couple of times, I said "no, no, no". 

This child does NOT like to hear the word "no". He is strong-willed and determined. When he puts his mind to something, he does NOT back down. These are great qualities to have, but they pose a challenge for Mama! After the first several "no's", Kingston melted down. 

He lost his mind until I cleaned him up and took him out. I wouldn't necessarily say this project was a fail because he did get to experience it, but I probably should have thought this one through a little bit more! Funny thing is, he had never even had oatmeal at this point! (He tried steel cut oats for the first time a couple days after he did this activity!) It was funny that he wanted so badly to eat it!

The outcome of the project was interesting. I definitely should have rethought the color! As Glam*Ma so lovingly pointed out, K's masterpiece resembled vomit. Beautiful vomit for sure, but not the prettiest result! 

I will definitely try this again, because Kingston did really enjoy it at the beginning. I think next time, I will try mixing the oats with an edible fingerpaint, so that K can go to town on it. That way, I won't have to worry if he wants to have a few bites! Doing this activity also made me really want to try a baby friendly play dough. I am definitely going to have to add that to the list. I hope you enjoy making your own sensory vomit painting .. I mean ... oat-rageous orange oat painting!!