Ocean Full of Fishies

I ended up LOVING this piece that we just finished and had to share pretty much immediately (after Alexandria was asleep of course) with everyone.  I got the idea from a website online for the fish and then just got creative while we were doing it to add in some other ocean pieces.

Things you'll need:
 - paintbrushes
 - variety of paint colors (green for seaweed, blue for bubbles, and whatever colors you'd like for your fish)
 - large sheet of paper
 - google-y eyes
 - permanent black marker
 - tiny hands :)

First, and of course the most difficult task, was to apply a variety of colors to Alexandria's hand before she made a fist and mushed them all together (which probably would have also looked neat)!  She was amazingly patient with this and held out her hand while I did the various stripes of colors.  One thing I tried to do was to make a larger part of her palm the same color so it could act as the fish face.  I made hers a little bigger than I would have liked, but it still turned out just fine.

Make the hand print facing either side of the paper.  I had it so her thumb was at the bottom of the sheet, but I don't think it would matter much if it was at the top since the fingers are representing the flowing fins.  Repeat as many times as you like or as many times as your child will let you re-apply paint!  We did two fish with each application of color and ended up with four cute little fishies.

At this point, I was kind of bummed and thinking about what else I could add when I thought about an ocean floor and using her fingers to make seaweed.  I painted only her four fingers with green paint (excluded her thumb), moved the bottom of the paper to the edge of the table and pressed her fingers all along the bottom.  I had to re-apply paint a few times, but I kept pressing until it was all off and then would go over it as necessary with newly paint covered fingers.

Again, I thought it needed something else on the left side.  I originally was going to fill it with a Mama fishy hand-print, but I opted for the easier task of letting her keep green paint on her hand a make a larger sea plant.  I added paint to the rest of her hand for this.  She went a little crazy smearing in the middle, so I added a print to top it off and like magic, we had a sea plant!

Next, I flipped the paper upside-down so that we wouldn't get in the wet paint and used her pointer finger to make blue fingerprint bubbles coming out of all of the fishies' mouths.

After it dried, I went back and added a half oval of sorts to make a head area on the fish and a cute half smile with the permanent marker.  Last, but not least I added a small google-y eye to the face.  You can see the face better in the first photo in the post.  There you have it!  Super cute fish and an ocean scene made all from my little girls hand!