Instead of getting your patio or driveway messy with paint that needs to be washed off, stick with nature and paint with… mud instead!

The first thing you’ll need to do for this project is make the mud, which in and of itself was a delight for Veronika. She took my hand and toddled over to the trees with me to scoop some dirt into a bucket.

Once back on the patio, we added water to the bucket and stirred with a craft stick until the mixture was very muddy. If it gets too thin and watery, just add a little more dirt.

Then I provided Veronika with paintbrushes and thick paper, treating the mud like it was real paint.

At first, stirring the mixture in the bucket was such a joy that she focused on that. But then I showed her how to move her paintbrush over the paper, and soon she was happily swirling and dotting with her brown “paint”.

She eventually discovered she could use the craft sticks to scoop out thicker globs of mud from the bottom of the bucket and smear onto the canvas.

In fact when I moved one sheet of “painted” paper aside to dry in the sun, she started carrying blobs of dirt over to it to carefully balanced on her craft stick. Clearly the artist wasn’t done!

This kept her so busy in the sunshine for quite a while. Perfectly dirty and messy fun!