We made rainbow pictures to put in our windows to spread a little cheer to anyone who might see.
I can take no credit for this idea. It seems schools all over the country have been encouraging their children to paint rainbows for home windows to bring joy to passersby. I actually saw it on a fellow blogger's, The Twinkle Diaries Facebook page, who was sharing her home school activity for her followers. The two boys had made such beautiful, colourful rainbows that it totally inspired me to get our kids to make some.
A Rainbow. What an image of hope. I can't really believe how life has changed this week for us. It seems quite unbelievable that in a matter of days this country went more or less completely into lock down to help protect many from the spread of this Coronavirus.
When I was reading about the spread of rainbow joy through the country I thought it was such a wonderful visual for bringing joy. We all know how nice it is to see a rainbow; that magic of sunshine and water covering the sky with colour. Biblically it was a reminder of a promise, one that offers hope even when we may only see the darkness and how prominent that same theory is today. While this wave is covering the earth we are finding ourselves totally covered in the darkness of unknowing and actually, a rainbow becoming a beacon of hope is exactly the kind of symbol I need to help me move forward.
Today is also Mothering Sunday, a weird one as I haven't been able to see my mum or in fact attend church as all churches now have no masses for the foreseeable future. That in itself is mental. Being a cradle catholic, this is the first time I have ever known such a thing to happen and with the thought of no return date the whole idea of not having our Church community is a very scary one. I know this has also really affected Raph and actually after attending the last mass to be said at our church on Friday night he burst into tears explaining he didn't like all these things changing.
I know how important it is right now to offer our family a constant, some hope and just to keep life simple.
Spending some time together today was truly wonderful. Painting these rainbows was such a nice activity and a wonderful thing to do on Mother's day. It made me feel like a mum, this time I was giving them and we were able to talk and answer questions and just be together, all four of us just being at peace.
The Rainbow
I had nothing special to do a fancy collage one with (I actually hate crafting), I don't even have a box of poster paints, yep I am that mum, but what I do have is a select few acrylic paints which I had bought for other projects that never got complete! I also happened to have 4 sheets of artists paper that had been left over from some project I can't even remember which suddenly had a more colourful life to live!
Our colour pallet
I just thought I would list the colours we used as that is often something I am interested in:
Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylic in Yellow Ochre / Pale Umber / Burnt Sienna / Pale Terracotta / Pale Olive. Just so you know the website colours look nothing like the actual paint colours but the names are the same so I can only presume they are.
Our Rainbows
I happened to have enough frames for our rainbows by simply taking out older prints. This project was not about buying new to suit, I have used what we had. All the frames are different but that doesn't matter, these paintings are now framed and round the house with three of them facing outside to offer something to the world.
If you have children off school or just fancy getting arty yourself, why not help fill our streets with colour and a sign of hope to remind us all that this will pass.
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