With preschool over and summer ahead of us, I decided to resurrect the art group for a few months. The kids aren't toddlers anymore so I can't call it the toddler art group, although some have toddler (and infant) siblings. We're calling it the summer art group.
I came across this while deciding what to do for the first meeting, and thought an abstract version of the watercolor resist project might be fun to try. I set out pieces of Con-tact paper, black crayons, and scissors so the kids could draw their own pictures or shapes and cut them out themselves. They then peeled off the backing (with help) and arranged their Con-tact shapes onto cardstock. I was out of watercolor paper so we used poster board cut down.
They then painted over the entire sheet of paper with liquid watercolors. Nathan, above, stuck with the one color look.
His brother Justin worked with the whole palette. See how the Con-tact shapes keep the paint off the paper? Most of the kids outlined the shapes first, like he did above, then filled in the rest of the paper.
Marlise's pools of watercolor are starting to work their way under her shapes here. I forgot to mention that you need to really press the edges of the Con-tact paper down hard to create a seal before painting. Lifting excess paint with a cloth or paper towel and using real watercolor paper would probably help prevent this as well.
Here Maia and Marlise are peeling the shapes off after the paint has dried.
After lunch (and after the group left), Maia wanted to do some more painting, so we went back to the studio again. I cut out an "M" for her and she did the watercolor initial project in it's original version.
Then she created her own whole new version of the project by drawing with oil pastels over squares of Con-tact paper, then painting over the whole thing.
And here's the finished piece after the paint dried and the squares were removed. Other watercolor resist ideas:
- Use masking tape
- Use stickers
- Draw with crayons or oil pastels (try white and other light colors)
- Draw with a wax candle
