Painting with Marbles

Today's art activity was really fun! 

We painted with marbles!!!  Painted with what?!?!  MARBLES!!! = )

We did this a couple of times at the preschool where I used to teach.  Painting with marbles evolved from 'painting with rocks.'  Painting with rocks was a bit more difficult as the rocks tumbled about awkwardly, almost always missing the paint streaks on the paper so we ended up experimenting with painting with marbles.  The results were amazing!

So since we had marbles (as I posted on Cereal Box Marble Run), we tried the activity this afternoon! The girls picked out the paper and the different paint colors, and we watched how the artwork turned out when the marbles rolled over the paint streaks.

The end result: nine (9) mini Jackson Pollocks!

Here are the materials we used:

Tubes of paint
Marbles
Plastic tray that could fit 8.5x11" paper
8.5x11" paper

First, we put the paper into the plastic tray then we applied the paint streaks.  For the sample, I used the primary colors.

 

And the girls rolled the marbles about in the tray.

Our first finished product.

Really neat, huh?!

Here are the rest...the girls took turns choosing paper and paint, and tilting the tray from side to side.

Blue and silver paint.

Purple and gold.

Gold and silver on speckled black paper.

Blue, orange and gold on speckled black paper.

Light blue and gold on speckled black paper.

Trying out as many colors.

Trying out as many colors on purple paper.

After all nine works of art, the marbles were thick with paint.  Since we used acrylic, I washed them off right away with soap and water.  The paint came off quickly with a little bit of scrubbing.

These works of art make great gift-wrapping paper!

Or when framed, a nice, homemade Father's Day gift to brighten up daddy's office wall!

So, mommies, try and make little Jackson Pollocks out of your little ones with this simple yet really fun painting activity! = ) 

Painting Tissue Roll Owls

The hoarder in me started collecting tissue paper rolls months back for crafts with the little ones or a DIY project for the home.  It wasn't till today that painting them tickled our fancy!

I saw these cute tissue roll owls on pinterest  and thought it best to get messy and paint the tissue rolls instead (I later found out that one of the little ones had already done something similar during summer school!  Oh well! :)).

So what started out looking like this:

...was transformed into this for some crayon-resist art.

My daughter wanted to prepare some herself too for the cousins.

Then we moved outdoors for some messy painting fun!

These are some "BEFORE" shots.

I only put primary paint colors so they practice making secondary colors in the process.  I love it when they say, "Look, I made green!" or "Look, I made purple!"

And some "AFTER" shots.

!!!

 Some action shots while they were hard at work.

Quite fun so I painted some tissue roll owls myself!

Here are some of our tissue roll owls ( I think we painted nine it total).

I painted the first two.  Didn't the little ones do a better job?!

This is another easy peasy, fun craft activity that every kid (and kid-at-heart) will enjoy!

Try it yourself! = )