Kid Literature blog : Summer art with kids! Ice-painting. Cool idea!

Tuesday 7 July 2015

Summer art with kids! Ice-painting. Cool idea!

art tips and fun combined.

It's summertime, and time for more outdoor activities, fresh air, sunshine and happy days.

The school year is coming to a close, or maybe has already for some of us, and the holidays are looming bright and some lucky people are waiting excitedly as they countdown the days to their vacation or holiday fun. But while you are counting down the days they will go a lot quicker if you have a gripping book to read, or you are looking after children.
Make that time a pleasurable time for you and the children by creating art outdoors.
It's getting hotter outside, and everyone is ready for some fun in the sun! Summertime can also get a little too hot, so make sure sun hats and sunscreens are worn by everyone. Remind the older kids that you still tan with sunscreen, it only blocks out the harmful ageing rays.
So here we go, let us have fun with ice and water and paint! Woopeee!

Lets get messy! (But let the mess wash up easy for a chilled life too!)

What can be more exciting to cool you down on a hot day than ice painting!

It is so easy to make, and before you know it, you are ready to have cooling pictures, that are just too cool for school!

Prepare

To prepare it is a lot easier to do so the night before, so you do not have children asking every few seconds 'when is the ice paint going to be ready?'
So the night before all you have to do is to mix half paint to half water and then pour carefully into an ice tray container. Even when the paint is watered down you can get amazing vibrant colours.
If you have a shelf on your freezer that you can keep empty for this activity then all the better, so you may be able to put 2 trays of paints on this shelf depending on how much paint and how many containers you have.
One container will do. Why not try the primary colours. Use £1 / $1 shop acrylic paint, or even better, if you have time make your own with simple cornflour and food colouring! Better for the environment too!

So you may want to have red, and green and yellow and blue, maybe a little pink or purple or orange depending on the child's favourite colour!
Mix half of one colour in a jug with the same amount of water, mix it up so it is combined and then carefully pour into the ice cube tray.
Maybe do a row of each colour, so you have a multicolored ice tray to wow them with at breakfast the next morning!

Once you get the hang of it and you want to be a little more arty, when the first colour is set in the freezer you can add another colour on top of it. So when you come to create with them they give you 2 or 3 different colours, and this helps them learn which colours make different colours once mixed together!
Wow, the kids are having so much fun, they do not even know how much they are learning! Adding glitter is also a fun addition once children are older than 5 years.

Now you can use any paper of course, but thick paper works very good, and this can be sketch paper, craft paper, watercolour paper and gesso paper. You can create your own gesso paper with ordinary thin paper and make it into watercolour paper! Watch tutorial videos which are brand new coming soon, to see how to make your own watercolour magical paper that resists for perfect blending colours with any inks and paint and pencils and gelatos.

Turn out your cube tray outside, on the lawn, garden, path, or front porch area.
You can drop them in a large bowl to keep them together and more organised with little mess.
Canvasses and towels are so cool to use for a background too in the summer. Take your newly made ice cubes and drop them or work them into your paper or towel. Swirl them around and the fun begins once they start to melt.
Allow the ice cubes to melt and trickle down your work surface area, paper or towel and then add other colour ice cubes and let their imagination go!