Using sponges can be a fun way to paint. We had a set of synthetic sea sponges I’d picked up from somewhere (probably Bunnings, I’ve been spending a lot of time there lately), and we set to work with some poster paints. I placed some paint onto a plastic tray so that L and A could dip the sponges into the paint easily. This, in theory, should have worked nicely, except both L and A pushed the sponges down until the sponges had absorbed all of the paint from the tray. This was way too much paint, so when they first put the sponge on the paper, it just left a big blob instead of the sponge texture I’d been aiming for.

L making prints.

A squashing the sponge down.

It was very hard to convince A to press the sponge to the paper more gently. She just wanted to squish all the paint out of the sponge in one go. And when my attention was diverted by L asking me a question, A used that opportunity to paint her palm with the sponge and do some hand prints too. By the end of the activity, L was managing to get some nice textured prints from the sponge. On one of L’s paintings, she used one colour to make lots of prints across the paper, and then, when that was dry, she used a different colour over the top. This gave a nice layered and multi-coloured effect. Most of the paintings ended up with lots of sponge prints all over them in all of the colours we had out. This is definitely an activity that we will be doing again.

Using the sponge to make layered art.

One of the finished sponge paintings.