Tag Archives: art

Oct8

Squishy Press Painting

Posted on October 8, 2013 by TodayWeDid

These sort of paintings probably have a real name, but I’ve always thought of them as squishy or butterfly paintings due to the way the paint is squished between the paper, and that the final outcome often looks butterfly-ish.

Blobbing the paint onto the paper.

Squishing the folded paper together to spread and mix the paint.

We like doing these simple paintings. The kids like the way the paint squishes and mixes to make pretty patterns. I pre-folded the paper to make it easier for the kids to see where to put the paint. They blobbed paint onto the paper using paint brushes and then re-folded the paper and pressed down on it to spread the paint. It works best if the paint is near the fold of the paper in blobs of different colours, and don’t let it dry before folding. Pressing the paper away from the fold towards the edge of the paper will spread the paint further, and change the shape of the painting. Open the paper, and there is a pretty painting inside!

Oct8

Bubble Prints

Posted on October 8, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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Blowing bubbles.

These pictures are fun to make. I mixed some paint with water to make it thinner, and then added a little bit of dish washing liquid to each colour and mixed it all up. A used a straw to blow into the mixture to produce lots of bubbles. L refused to blow through the straw, as she was worried that she would accidentally suck it up into her mouth. That was okay, she still used some paper to make bubble prints after A or I made the bubbles.

The kids carefully placed their sheets of paper over the bowls full of bubbles, transferring the paint onto the paper to make a bubble print.

Transferring the bubble pattern to paper.

It can become a bit messy when the bubbles pop, as little droplets of paint get sprayed out. When L and A put their heads close to the bubbles they ended up with the droplets on their faces, and in their hair. It was plenty of fun, but the kids needed a bath after we were finished 🙂

A bubble print.

Aug31

Yarn Painting

Posted on August 31, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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Once we’d finished doing our rubberband splat paintings we had some leftover paint on our tray. I didn’t want to waste it, so we decided to try doing some painting with lengths of yarn.

Using one colour at a time.

Adding colour.

More colour.

We put each piece of yarn into a single colour and covered the yarn with paint. Then one at a time, the kids dropped the yarn onto the paper in random patterns. They used all the different colours we had out to make some lovely rainbow paintings. It worked much better if there was more paint on the yarn so that it left thicker marks. The different colours were overlaid as the kids added more paint to their paintings. Once we’d done a couple of practice ones on paper, we used more of the mini canvases to make a final painting.

Finished mini-canvases.

These canvases will be added to the father’s day presents the kids have made for their Dad.

Aug31

Rubberband Splat Painting

Posted on August 31, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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We are trying out some new ways to paint. I remembered seeing this technique at L’s playschool once, and wanted to try it at home.

We took a little box of thick cardboard and placed some thin rubber bands around the box. We practiced with paper first, and then used some mini canvases I’d picked up from the dollar shop for the final painting.

We put the paper/canvas in the box underneath the rubber bands, then painted the rubber bands one at a time and flicked them so that the paint splattered onto the paper/canvas. It was great fun, though we did get paint all over our hands, and some even splattered up onto A’s face and hair. I’m very happy with the results.