Art projects are like little fires: gather your materials, keep them ready, and when inspiration strikes you get burning. This weeks (and last) little fires included blot painting, some outdoor painting, and the usual assortment of drawings.

Blot Paintings

The kids and I saw this blot painting technique recently on a video and wanted to try it out.

For these we used good quality washable paint, placed a few drops on a piece of paper, folder them, squeezed tight, and then opened them up and let them dry. The paint on black paper worked surprisingly well, and I wonder why I don’t try different colored paper more often.

Vivian and I especially like a couple of the black ones and we thought they went together, so I connected them and used a white gel pen to add a figure on top. Fun project!

Field Paintings

I decided to try some quick paintings while standing outside with the kids playing nearby. Something fast and loose using some water pens and travel Inktense watercolor set I recently got. Turned out pretty good and was super easy and portable.

Drawings

I’m trying to be more deliberate about practicing drawing figures and the kids offer limitless options, although I should probably expand to beyond the 3-7 year old range again soon.

Scratch-away

My wife did this one using some “scratch-away” paper she has with some wishes for the kids. I like how it turned out and the notion of using a background in this way.

See some other little fires here.