Regardless of the weather, Arty and I walk almost every day. We wander up the street to get milk at the shop, to post a letter, or to get a coffee at our local cafe. As we do we chat about the things we see, hear and smell.

To begin with, I was doing this really earnestly and consciously, because I was anxious to develop his vocabulary and his observation skills (yes, I know, I’m eyerolling at myself too), but these days it’s more just about social chit chat.

Now that spring has really kicked in, all the trees in our neighbourhood are covered in flowers, and Arty’s been noticing their different colours and forms. He’s been particularly interested in eucalyptus because they are, as he quite rightly points out, “fuzzy”.

The other day I thought it might be fun to put this unique quality of the eucalyptus flower to work in our art time…

What we used

• Several large eucalyptus blossoms
• Food colouring mixed with water
• Paper

What we did

All I did was point out how the flowers looked like little paintbrushes, and Arty went to work.

We experimented with different techniques like dabbing, and swirling, to produce different effects, and both very much enjoyed the process.

(These colours are quite pale, so in future, I think I’ll mix the dye and water to make them a bit brighter.)

The novelty of using a different tool for applying paint was very appealing to Arty, so I’m definitely going to try some variations on this with him in future.