Create your own Paint Drip Pencil Pots
I’ve always appreciated the decorative potential of paint dribbles, and this project uses that most everyday of items – the tin can – along with translucent glass paints to provide pen/pencil/brush holders that have a painterly beauty all of their own. Because the glass paints are translucent, they allow the metallic sheen of the tin can to shine through, giving the colour a luminous enamelled effect. These are really simple to create. Having removed the original label from the can, I cleaned off the glue using white spirit, which polished up the can quite nicely, and then just painted a rim of colour around the top with a…
Fun with Frottage
One of the things I most love about art is its sensual qualities. Art can be many things, but for me it’s the visual and tactile elements of art that I especially enjoy, and which I think are also particularly fun for children to explore. I’ve always had a particular attraction to texture especially – as an art student, I spent a lot of time seeking out ruined dilapidated buildings to paint because of the wonderful subtle colour combinations and textures you found there – not to mention their evocative atmosphere. A great way to achieve texture on paint is by using the technique of ‘frottage’. This is basically the…
Creating Splat Monsters
This is a really simple, yet fun activity which is a great way for kids to exercise their imagination and can result in some fabulous artwork. There are no doubt numerous different ways in which you might create your monsters, but I chose to create my ‘splat monsters’ by dribbling several different colours of tempera paint onto paper. You can also tilt the paper about if you wish to move the paint and give yourself more ‘control’, but this isn’t really necessary. The ‘splat’ is then created by placing another piece of paper over the paint and pressing down – the amount of pressure you use, and how you move the…
