How Green Becomes Wood

"Do you have anything to paint her face with?" Cooger asked, "and equally important, do you have painting skills? 'Cause I can't do much more than a stick figure." He paused for a moment, and looking down at Ivy he said, "We might could make finger paints."
 
Cooger laughed, and followed her into the kitchen, searching up on the internet with one hand while still carrying Ivy, "It looks like we just need cornstarch, water, and food colouring." He looked up at Lex, "What are the chances they own more than just black food colouring?"
 
"I think Xander uses food coloring," Lex said, investigating cupboards with gleeful abandon and checking out the pantry. She found the cornstarch easily enough, but the food coloring took a little longer. Finally, she located Xander's full spectrum of food colors and plunked them down on the counter with pride. "There's also a lot of black, red, and dark purple."
 
"I see that," Cooger said with delight, "Well, we should start with the primary colours, definitely, and she'd probably like purple. It looks like we just need to mix the cornflower in with cold water to make a thin paste, pour the boiling water in, and stir it on the stove. The food colouring goes in after we take it off the heat."
 
Lex followed orders, mixing up five bowls of cold water paste, chatting with Cooger and Ivy as they waited for the water to boil, and then concentrating on not spilling the water as she poured it into the multiple small bowls of cornflower. Once that was done, she quickly mixed in the three primary colors and then had Ivy pick two more. That seemed like more fun than only making the primary colors.

"Alright, this is looking pretty good," she reported to Cooger, testing one out gingerly.
 
Ivy looked at the colours and ended up choosing purple and green, and she watched this messy, goopy mixture in curious delight.

"I think we should probably take her out in the yard for this," Cooger said, "and I'll go change her into something less pretty."
 
"Alright. You probably know where everything is. I'll get a painting station set up outside," Lex said. She took the paints outside and then hunted up some paper, finding some scratch paper in a trash can that looked usable. Ivy wouldn't mind a less-than-pristine paper, she thought, but she did snag a couple of those, too. Then she found some old towels that looked like they were used to dry off Enkidu when he was outside in the snow and mud and got everything set up outside. That done, she tossed a ball for Enkidu until Cooger returned.
 
Cooger took Ivy upstairs and helped change her into something which seemed like it was both easily washable and something she was likely going to outgrow soon anyway. Although, he supposed, while he scooped her up under one arm and marched her outside, with a toddler all her clothes were ones she was likely to outgrow soon.

"You've made a fine studio out here," Cooger said, suitably impressed, "Alright, Ivy, you ready to make a masterpiece?"
 
"Thank ya very much!" Lex said with a grin. She threw the ball one more time and then went to sit next to Ivy and Cooger. "Maybe I should weigh down the papers... Do you think that would help, or would she get distracted with rocks?"
 
"Good point." Lex went to fetch a couple of decent rocks and set them on the corners of the first paper. "Alright, Ivy, what do you think of this?" She showed Ivy the red paint and dipped her finger in it before rubbing it on the paper to make an I.
 
It took almost no prompting for Ivy to put her hands into the colourful goop. The harder part was convincing her to touch the paper, but once she did it once, she squealed in delight and looked up at the two adults for confirmation that this was okay.
 
Ivy laughed, and putting her whole hand into the green paint, put a big hand print on the page. Squealing at what she had done, she put her other hand into the blue and started rubbing the page.

"We've created a monster," Cooger laughed, dipping his finger into the paint and drawing a simple smiley face.
 
Lex laughed and started a small tic-tac-toe game against herself. "More wild colors in their house! It's a good thing Xander likes black or it'd be three against two for vibrancy. Not that I dislike their place. It's pretty epic."
 
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