watercolor – mrs. jigg

I recently printed a free A-Z alphabet hunt pack from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls to review letter recognition and sounds with the Dumpling. To spice up the activity so that she was not just circling the letters 26 times on repeat, we divvied the worksheet pack into four to five separate exercises and “circled” the letters a different way each time.

1. Apply Sticker Labels

I wrote the letters out on circle labels and asked the Dumpling to stick them on as each letter was identified.

2. Dab On Colored Glue

If you do not have colored glue, create your own by mixing food coloring or liquid watercolor (add more drops for higher color intensity) to white Elmer’s glue.

3. Stamp with Fingers, Bottle Caps, Etc.

4. Paint With Watercolor

This step is optional: I pre-circled the letters with a white crayon so the correct answers were “revealed” once they were painted over.

5. Squirt Watercolor With Liquid Dropper

Sometimes just switching up the tool does wonders to renew my kiddo’s interest. Using a liquid dropper saved from an old medicine bottle, the Dumpling squirted liquid watercolor on top of the letters.

6. Puncture With Push Pins

Placing a folded towel (or two) underneath a worksheet, the Dumpling punctured each letter that she found with a pin.

N.B. Needless to say, the pins are sharp and adult supervision is required.

Naturally she insisted on using her toy hammer.

Geometric art seems to be popular these days, so I wanted to incorporate the design trend in my next art project with the Dumpling. Combining it with the tape-resist technique, the Dumpling and I put a twist on this classic kid-friendly activity to create a series of geometric animals…and a heart!

My Post (5).jpg — Our tape-resist geometric art series (clock-wise): elephant, heart, flamingo, fox, and rabbit.

Taping the designs might seem complicated and cumbersome, but I managed to create them pretty easily by tweaking a hack I learned online.

Materials

Geometric animal outlines (download from thenounproject.com)
Painter’s tape of desired width (I used 0.25″)
Scissors
Watercolor paper (or sturdy paper)
Watercolor
Pencil
Photocopy paper (optional)
Safety pin (optional)
Towel (optional)

Directions

Download a geometric animal design. Head over to thenounproject.com to peruse its library of geometric animals and download the one you would like to use. All the animal designs I used in this project were created by Agne Alesiute from the Noun Project.

Dot the corners of the animal print. Open the image file on your computer and tape the paper (the one you will be painting on) onto the monitor so the print shines through. It doesn’t need to be perfectly visible—just enough to see the outlines. If preferred, zoom in to enlarge for a bigger design.

Fox over computer — I have turned my monitor into a makeshift light table!

Lightly dot all of the corners with a pencil…with emphasis on “lightly” because you don’t want the markings to be noticeable on the final.

Fox dot — The red dots indicate the corners that need to be dotted with a pencil.

If your paper stock that is too thick for the image to shine through, apply this step on regular photocopy paper first. Then remove the photocopy paper from your monitor and puncture the dots with a safety pin. I’ve found it helpful to do this on top of a flat surface with a towel underneath. Using the punctured image as a guide as to where to dot, lay it on top of the paper you will be painting on and lightly mark each hole with a pencil…again, emphasis on “lightly”.

Connect the dots with painter’s tape. Before investing the effort in applying all that tape, test peeling off a small strip to see whether it tears your paper. If it does, tape the strip on your shirt first to remove some of its adhesiveness.

As you are connecting each dot, keep the original image file open on your screen for reference because the dots may look entirely random!

Color with watercolor.

I’m always shocked that the paper doesn’t rip under all that water. Go IKEA art supplies!

Peel the tape off once the paint dries. I removed all the strips easily and was rewarded with sharp, clean lines. Despite spending so much effort taping everything on, it was quite satisfying taking them off!