Screen Splatter Painting

I have fond memories of screen splatter painting from when I was small so I finally managed to get around to trying it with my children.

My Dad quickly nailed together a frame for me and I used some fly wire from the shed to staple onto the frame.

We then propped the frame up on two bricks and set the piece of paper underneath (must remember not to take photos of my foot next time!). To make it a little more interesting the children picked some leaves from my jasmine vine and put them on top of the paper. We mixed acrylic paint with water to make it easier to splatter. We used old toothbrushes to dip in the paint and run across the screen and it created our splatter picture. 

We had a quick look to see if there was enough paint on the picture before we removed the leaves.

Now we have to wait for the paintings to dry before we hang them up in the house.

I did find that acrylic paints clogged up the screen, so next time we'll try water colours or inks and see how that goes.

Rocket Picture

Remember the splatter paintings we did the other day? Well, after letting them dry we did go on to make rocket pictures.

James is very interested in rockets, space, aliens and astronauts at the moment. Possibly the result of following the Curiosity Rover a little bit too much over the last week. To ensure he had a proper rocket, we found a colouring in sheet for him to decorate, then we cut out the rocket and glued it on to the painting.

James had a look at the picture and said that the rocket was missing something. On closer enquiry he said it was missing the red hot fire that the rocket has to try and run away from. Glitter and glue provided the flames to propel the rocket into space (I admit that I told him that the flames usually came from the engines and were used to propel the rocket - Youtube provided some examples we watched). While looking for the glitter we came across a sheet of star stickers and an empty frame, so of course we had to use them both. The frame was perfect for the picture and adds a nice finishing touch.

James is just sticking the final star sticker on to the picture. I liked it so much that we have hung it on the wall in our hallway. It looks rather good under the red light there.

Splatter Painting

In the cupboard we have a lot of black cardboard. It is not quite as versatile as other coloured card. It isn't much good for drawing on, it is too sombre for the average painting and there are only so many wheels the average cardboard car needs. One thing I really like using it for is splatter painting. This is a great activity and the resulting art work can be used as wrapping paper, cards and as the background for sticking shapes on. It also has the benefit of fitting any age group (it gets a tick for being a single activity that all my children can do together without me having to thing of age appropriate variations)

Here are the pictures from today - the kids didn't bother washing the paint brushes between colours so there is an interesting swirl through the colours.

And then we get to use it to make something else...these are destined to be the night sky behind rockets blasting into space.