A friend of mine gifted me an canvas that she no longer wanted in her home.  I thought about using the canvas for myself, but I never got around to gessoing over the image to replace with my own.  Then I remembered something I read about on my art teachers group page about how a teacher had this canvas in her room that the kids could paint on when they had extra paint or had finished with their work.

I thought this was a fabulous idea.  So I brought the large (36″X40″) canvas to school and had my aide put one coat of gesso on the canvas.  You could still see the original painting through the gesso, but I thought that might help kids to get started.

I put a sign up that read ” LIVING PAINTING” with a smaller sign underneath.  It reads, “Got extra paint?  Add to the living painting.  Please refrain from curse words and penises.  Thanks.”  (Some of my students are obsessed with drawing, painting, and creating penises.  It’s what they do.)

I introduced them to the canvas today, and they jumped right in.

I have included a slideshow of the canvas in the sidebar of my school art blog to show how it changes over time.  I am in love already.