"Snow and Ice" Salt Paintings

The recent bout of snowy and icy weather we have been experiencing lately has been fascinating for the boys as they experience their first ever winter in the UK.  I thought it would be great to capture the different textures and colours of the season through some artwork using a technique called salt painting.

Ideally a salt painting is made by sprinkling salt onto a watercolour painting whilst the painting is still wet.  The water from the paint absorbs the salt and sticks it to the painting.  (In our case, I misread the watercolour paint chart and accidentally purchased white watercolour paint instead of  blue!) I improvised by watering down regular blue Crayola paint which seemed to work just as well.

I set out the watercolour paper on the table and let the boys paint for a couple of minutes.  Whilst their paintings were still wet, I presented them with two small bottles: one containing fine salt and the other containing coarse salt.  After sprinkling salt on his picture, Dooey was pretty much done.  Wugs wanted to continue, so I brought out the white watercolour paint (that I accidentally purchased) and he happily painted away talking about "snow" and "wind" as he did it.  Later both boys added a sprinkle of glitter which created a nice effect.  

What we used:

Watercolour Paper

Blue Crayola Paint (watered down) (Blue watercolour paint may have been better)

White watercolour paint

Fine and coarse salt

Silver glitter

Simple and Cheap Christmas Tree Sponge Cards

This week we have been working on finishing our Christmas cards and to my delight I found that Sainsbury's had made the job easier with their festive sponges (50p for a packet of 3).  

I diluted some green paint with water, mixed it up and then asked Wugs to dip the sponge into the paint, making sure the paint had fully covered the sponge.  I laid out some A5 sheets of white paper and he pressed the sponge on to each one.  We left the Christmas trees to dry and then both Wugs and Dooey decorated them with glitter, stickers, felt-tip pens and markers.  Then I mounted them on to card.

What we used:

Sainsbury's festive sponge/scourers

Green paint (diluted with a couple of tablespoons of water)

Paper

Card

Here are the links to other Christmas cards we have made:

Snowflake cards

Hand and Finger Print Christmas Cards

Painting with Greaseproof Paper and Food Colouring

Our crafting fun has ground to a halt this week as I'm knee-deep in laundry after embarking on the dreaded toilet-training with Wugs and dealing with a sick Dooey.  The craft I'm posting about today was carried out one rainy afternoon a few weeks ago.  I got the idea to shine light through greaseproof paper whilst writing up my post about how to make a light box.

I unrolled a large sheet of greaseproof paper and sellotaped it to the worktop.  Then I added a few drops of food colouring (I used red, yellow and orange for Dooey) to separate containers and added a few drops of water to dilute the colour slightly and to ensure it lasted longer.  I passed the paintbrush to Dooey and off he went - happily painting away! This was his first proper painting session and the first time he has carried out an activity in the play tower.  He looked so proud of himself!

Once he had finished, Wugs had a turn and chose this colours (green and yellow).  Once the boys had finished, we headed off to the coffee shop for a treat whilst the paintings dried.  Later, I hung them up on the balcony doors where the colours caught the light.  I have thought about turning this artwork into something, but at the moment I'm enjoying the paintings for what they are.

What we used:
Large sheets of greaseproof paper
Food colouring
Paint brushes

Note: Although food colouring stains the hands, I discovered that if you wipe the hands as soon as the children have touched the food colouring, it takes out the colouring almost completely. Thankfully both boys used the paintbrush throughout most of the session!

Resist Tape Art

What a brilliant, effective process art and it makes lovely cards and gifts!  This was a gift to Wugs' "Nana" in England (which probably should have been spelt "Nanna").  The only problem we encountered with making names using the resist tape is that the names have to be fairly short in order to fit onto the card.

The preparation for this art took a little while as I needed to cut the tape and place it onto the card for Wugs.  A bit of precision is required here because if the tape is not aligned perfectly, the letter looks disjointed.  (For example, in the first picture, on the bottom of the first "N", the tape wasn't overlapped exactly and it shows up when the resist tape is peeled away).  The first picture also shows what the art work looks like before the resist tape is removed (see the two middle letters).

Once I had finished adding the resist tape, I let Wugs paint away and when he was finished I left the art work to dry a little before gently peeling back the tape.  The beauty of resist tape is that it sticks to the paper like sellotape, but doesn't tear the paper when it is pulled off like sellotape would.

What we used:
Scotch magic tape
Card
Paint
Scissors

Painting With Edible Paints

This activity marks the beginning of my interest in children's activities.  It was during a search for edible paints that I discovered an inspirational crafting site called the Imagination Tree.  Wugs created his first painting using this recipe from that site.  We found the ingredients blended together better if we put them in a saucepan on a low heat.