Fall Fruits Stamp Art

When those "baby" pumpkins that were so fun to hunt for started showing some spots, I sliced them in halves for a different kind of pumpkin painting!

I spread paper all over our coffee table and taped it down so we had a big space to work with. I set out three different stamp pads with washable paint and I put half of a pumpkin on each pad. These washable paint pads didn't put much pigment on the pumpkins. Ours might be drying out since we've had them for about a year now. But they're great because there's so little mess involved.

I put Calvin's smock on him and we started stamping!

A hand also makes a great stamp ;)

Calvin discovered that three pumpkins stamped together look like Mickey Mouse! 

Calvin also thought that the yellow pumpkin stamps looked like lions! So I put a face on this one and added legs.

On a different day, we did some stamping with apples. I saw this idea on Pinterest from an older post on the website Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds - Cut the apple so that it has its own handle for stamping! So clever.

We used tempera paint this time, and I used slices cut out from the apple to mix up some colors. 

Apple stamp! Or... ya know... hand stamp. Whatever.

I am noticing that Calvin is much more comfortable putting his hands in the paint and getting a little messy compared to a few months ago. Guess that's a good thing for his sensory development, even if it's a little messier! Oh well, it's all washable paint anyway!

We even used those little slices for painting.

He asked for another Mickey Mouse so I made this one for him ;)

I love how our pictures turned out! You miiiiiiight be able to tell which ones were mine and which ones were Calvin's...

We did apple stamping again yesterday because I had some apples that were getting too mushy to eat. This time we used bright red tempera paint and also the red stamp pad. We used both real apples and our apple-shaped foam stamp.

This art project is easy to throw together with things already in the house. It seems like kind of a shame to use perfectly yummy fruit for painting... (but it's for the sake of art, right??)... so we tend to use things that are already getting overripe.

Any other ideas for fall fruits and veggies? Maybe other small gourds and squash?