Jun 7

Jun 7 A jolly brolly painting idea

art, colour, creativity, painting, Winter

Winter has well and truly arrived in Victoria this week, announcing itself with grey skies and chilly mornings. As rain pelted down on my way to work last week and I cranked up the car heater, I caught sight of some pedestrians with cheerful umbrellas, and this view inspired an arty idea

I’m all for kids being creative in ways that celebrate the changing seasons. Umbrellas are simple shapes, just a slim half circle sitting above a letter ‘J‘ shaped handle, but they are a classic motif that makes a great blank canvas for some colourful fun.

This activity works best in a combination of oil pastels and water paint. Oil pastels (and crayons) make satisfying marks that have a waxy waterproof texture which resists paint, so their colours will pop through, even when watery paint or food dyes are swished across the top of them.

Materials needed:

a sheet of paper
a sheet of sturdy paper or card
scissors
so,me blutack
oil pastels
washable paint diluted with water
paintbushes, rollers (or fingers will do just fine)

The process… easy peasy

1) Cut some half-circles (umbrella-shaped) windows from the sturdy paper or cardboard.

2) Use blutack to position the window on top of the drawing page.

3) Invite your junior artist to fill the space within the window in lots of colours, patterns and shapes with the oil pastels. Encourage them to press hard with the pastel and cover all the white areas.

4) When the umbrella shaped window is filled with colour remove the window (and any blutak residue).

5) Add a simple handle by drawing a long letter J below the half circle shape.

5) Now it’s time to bring in the rain. Provide watery paint (blues? greens?) and a pot of water along with a paintbrush or fingers to get raindrops splashing all over the page, and onto the umbrellas.