Mulberries, Fingerpaint and Hand of Fatima

I told you about the mulberry trees in my parents' garden. It's great comfort to play with Milou in the shade they cast. So, grandpa, daddy and uncle have together built a classic sandbox under one of them for Milou in which she plays for hours while the fully ripe mulberries fall on the sand constantly during the day. Well, after such a few days it wasn't difficult to notice how much Milou loves squeezing fruit particularly red ones so the idea popped into daddy's head: Fingerpainting with squeezed mulberries! I fetched his pile of heavy paper and there we were all ready for lots of fun! I think all children love the ooey-gooey feeling as the paint oozes through their fingers and along their hands and arms while they fingerpaint and so did Milou. She was laughing while we were squeezing the mulberries. 

The first shapes to appear on the paper were the imprints of our hands with fingers spread apart, as expected! They looked like hand of Fatima which is kind of popular superstitious defense against evil eye since it represents blessings, power and strength. They reminded me of the palm-shaped amulets painted in red on the walls of some North African dessert houses for protection. Surprisingly enough, when my mom saw our paintings set aside to dry, she shared with us her very early childhood memories of the houses in her village in her hometown. She told us that elderly women in the village used to soak their hands in some red-brown mud and imprint their hands on the wall next to the front door. The idea was probably to ward off the evil eye. Whatever the reason was, she clearly remembers the bright red-brown colour of the hands on the white walls. Actually, her story sounded quite familiar when we thought of how 'Eastern' the symbol is. I was happy to listen to her memories as if they were to praise our artwork and 'Easternness'. 

Hand of Fatima, Jewish house, Mellah, Morocco

Hand of Fatima on a shop door in Cairo

By the way, it was accidentally smart enough to choose heavy paper for painting because mulberry juice (and original fingerpaint as well, I guess) would be too wet for regular paper. Well, after cleaning the mess we made, I searched for some recipes for home-made fingerpaints and here are three of them. The last one doesn't need any cooking and so super easy! 

  

Original Fingerpaint

Ingredients

1/2 cup cornstarch
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups cold water
food coloring

Directions

In a medium pan, mix all the ingredients together to make the finger paint. Cook over low heat 10 to 15 minutes. Keep stirring the finger paint mixture until it is smooth and thick. After the finger paint has thickened take the pan off the stove and let the mixture cool.

After cooling, divide the finger paint into storage containers depending on how many colors you would like. Add a few drops of food coloring to each container. Stir the coloring in to the paint to determine the shade of color. You're ready to finger paint! Cover tightly when storing.

Cornstarch Fingerpaint

Ingredients

3 cups water
1 cup cornstarch
food coloring

Directions

In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil.  Dissolve cornstarch in a separate bowl with water.   Remove boiling water from heat and add cornstarch mixture.  Return to heat, stirring constantly.  Boil until the mixture is clear and thick (about 1 minute).  Remove from heat.

As the mixture is cooling, divide into separate bowls and add food coloring.  Let the children carefully mix in the coloring.

Easy Fingerpaint

Ingredients

2 cups white flour
2 cups cold water
food coloring

Directions

Put water into a large bowl.  Slowly add the flour, while the children are stirring.  Once it's all mixed together, divide into smaller bowls and add food coloring.