Two years ago we went on a super fun vacation with our friends the Woolsteinhulmes. While staying in a beach house with them we all noticed this super scary painting with sea shells and dried sea weed all over it (the sea weed is what made it scary). Anyways, Jayden kept collecting sea shells the whole time we were on our vacation. He brought them home and I kept finding the bag of shells all over the house in random places. I hate when things don't have a home. So, Shane and I got this awesome idea...why don't we make a painting and glue the sea shells on it (kind of like the one at the beach house, but not so scary :). That is where this idea started.
And this is what it turned into... (our bedroom wall)
We had so much fun painting the first picture (with the sea shells) that we decided to buy a bunch of Canvas at the Japanese $1 store and paint a few of our FAVORITE things in Japan. It took us 2 years to complete...and we were able to enjoy the "finished" wall for 3 DAYS before our movers came and packed them up :/
The kids had SO much fun painting all of these they keep asking "what are we going to paint in Colorado?" I think we might have started a crazy tradition that may turn into loads and loads of paintings. Where will we put them all?!
Anyways, here are the paintings...
1. Shimoda Beach (painted by Jayden & Dad)
2. Japan Flag (painted by Tia with mom coaching)
I couldn't believe how well she painted in the lines.
3. Mt. Fuji (Jayden & Dad)
4. Kamakura (Tia & mom)
5. Tama Hills (mostly Jayden)
6. Tokyo Disney (Jayden and Tia)
7. Nikko (Jayden)
8. Japanese Hotsprings (Tia with Dad coaching)
9. Kyoto (Jayden with mom coaching)
10. Matsumoto (Tia with Dad coaching)
11. Tokyo Tower (Jayden by himself)
12. Okutama Roller Slide (Tia by herself with a tiny bit of coaching from mom).
13. Showa Park (Tia all by herself).
Side note: it was NOT easy teaching the kids how to paint these. It took LOTS of patience and Shane and I had to train ourselves to keep our mouths closed so the kids could paint how they wanted to.
The second reason we started this wall is because I wanted to paint a REALLY large painting of us and Mt. Fuji, but I first wanted the kids to have some practice with painting before doing the big one. All of these little painting were to give us experience to paint this...
Don't you love how Tia is naked (she drew herself) and the rest of us DONT have pants (Jayden drew us)??? I love it!
The kids physically painted the entire picture. The leaves and grass were stamps I made out of some Old Navy flip flops. The kids drew themselves, but I painted them exactly how they drew them (except for the faces-the kids did those). Shane painted the trail & helped coach the kids. It took us 7 days to complete because we had to do each layer 1 day at a time.
We had a blast painting it...and I ABSOLUTELY love it because it reminds me of our time here in Japan.
Notice how we are all holding sticks in the picture. That's what those 4 things are off to the left of our painting. When you hike Mt. Fuji you buy these sticks to hike with. Shane and I hiked to the top. When my parents were here 2 years ago we walked around the base of Mt. Fuji with the kids and my mom bought the smaller sticks for Jayden and Tia. Hopefully we can go hike a little more of it with the kids when hiking season starts back up in July.
Ohhhh....we are going to miss Japan!!!
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