Simple Saturday: Anasazi Cave Art

Photos taken by Tony Kuyper A quote from Flood's Sand to Stone and Back Again,  "I shelter deer, pack rats, antelope, and bats. And hikers, like you, or long ago, the Ancient Ones. In my canyons the built their homes, painted pictures, carved messages, and left handprints."

Pretend that you are an Ancient One living hundreds and hundreds of years ago in a cave located in the great Southwest with a desire to communicate, to express yourself artistically, or to just have some Simple Saturday fun! Let's take our Styrofoam meat tray, scissors, tempera paint, small art brush, small something to carve with, and piece of paper and roll back the hands of time, shall we?

Here's what we'll do:

Cut Styrofoam meat tray into 3 X 5 in. pieces. Carve a petroglyph into one of the small pieces. (Petroglyph is another word for cave art.) Brush tempera paint onto the petroglyph stamp. Press stamp onot piece of paper.

Great Gods! You've created cave art!

Study the cave art in the photos above. What ones speak to you? What do you think the Ancient Ones were trying to say? Be a Anasazi and create your own image, you little Simple Saturday wise one.

Simple Saturday: Painted Bread!

Get ready to have some tasty fun. Even though you might not like the ingredients or if food coloring makes you feel a bit wiggly inside, I think you'll have fun making Painted Bread. If you don't want to eat it your toast, give yours to your dog. (My dog Tripod loved the piece I gave to him...just joking.)

Here we are back in my kitchen.Do you have everything you need? Millk? Brushes? Food coloring? Toaster? Bread? I used wheat bread this time. For the optimum Painted Bread color contrast, white bread works best. Oooo...those bright colors against that milk-toast white is breath-taking!

Go ahead and put around 7 or 8 drops of food coloring in each glass of milk. Remember we're using red, yellow, and blue. (Those are pretty special colors with their own important name...primary colors.) Stir the food coloring in the milk using your super clean brushes. Now we're ready to really have some simple fun.

Paint your bread. Go ahead. Do it. Fill those bristles with lots of paint and spread it right on your bread. Use all the colors. Make rainbows, or cars, or hearts, or your name, or anything you'd like. Have a blast!

I must caution you to avoid the urge to saturate your bread with the paint. Soggy bread falls apart in the toaster. Trust me. I have had first hand experience in crummy things like this. 

I bordered the crust with red.Now put your bread in the toaster. Wait for it to toast. (The waiting is the hardest part.) Pop! Out it comes! Awesome! Go ahead and spread some butter or maybe a bit of peanut butter on it and you have a delicious simple feast, my friend.  

What do you think about Painted Bread? Post a comment. Tell me. I'd simply love to know.

Simple Saturday Prep: Painted Bread

This activity is fun, fun, fun and super easy to do! Gather up the following items and have them ready tomorrow morning. You just might like to make Painted Bread for breakfast! Yum.

You'll need:

• 3 small paintbrushes (Make sure that they are clean. You might want to buy some brand-new cheapies at the craft store...the most inexpensive ones on the rack!)
• Milk
• Red, yellow, and blue food coloring
• A piece of bread (white or wheat, anything as long as it is light in color)
• A toaster

That's it! See you tomorrow.