Lite-Brite Fun With Fine Art

I was cleaning out our game closet last night, and came across our old Lite-Brite.  As a toy, we've pretty much outgrown it, but I wondered if it might not still have a use in our art explorations.  T (age 18) has been studying, this week, for an Art of the Western World final, and I have to admit to looking over his shoulder to see if there's anything to glean for the younger children.

Anyway, I'm sure that's why when I looked at the Lite-Brite, that my first thought was - 'I wonder if we could recreate the Mona Lisa?' and not 'I wonder what we could get for this in a garage sale?'

Honestly, I'm not that into garage sales anyway, and my enthusiasm for cleaning out the closet was waning, and I remembered the color by numbers Mona Lisa coloring sheet we'd used a few summers ago with our tracing box...

 ...and thought, why not give it a go?

Of course, the Lite-Brite pegs are all the wrong colors, which led to some interesting creative choices, and there weren't nearly enough of them to complete the full picture...

...but it was an interesting exercise, that not only got our creative juices flowing, but also turned our focus back to the original painting (checking colors, and details) and on to other works, as we looked through our art books for works that might be better suited to the Lite-Brite colors and limitations - I'm thinking maybe something from the cubists...?  First though, I think I better finish with the closet.