It’s high summer here in our little corner of the world.

The weather has been full of surprises. After a weekend that delivered theatrical lightning, flooding rain and wild winds we’re now back in a sticky heatwave that has today left an unnerving whiff of distant bushfires in the air.

It can be a challenge to stay cool at home with little ones when the heat’s really on. Hot days can feel long, hot kids can feel uncomfortable.

We recently had some ‘hot day’ fun with frozen paint. This is such an easy, colourful and cool spin on watercolours and a good activity to remember in your ‘creative toolkit’ for those times when the mercury soars. Iceblocks of paint are easy to make, slippery and colourful, and as they melt they’ll leave surprising marks and patterns on paper.

I’ve collected a lots of ice cube trays in fun shapes over the years, mostly from opshops. By diluting watercolour paints and then carefully pouring them into trays to freeze overnight you create fun little icy paint cubes that can be held in hot little fingers and used to draw, smoosh or paint.

The melting paints can also make some fabulous marbled effects on the paper as as they thaw.

My tips:

• Prepare for this activity the night before a hot day, or have some cubes ready to go in your freezer.

• Dilute small quantities of water-based paints in cups and carefully pour into trays. You might use just one colour, or a whole bunch… this works either way.

• Pouring the cubes is a bit fiddly, and probably a grownup job.

• Use washable child-safe paint, this can get messy. Don’t use food dyes, or anything that stains. In the photos below you’ll see red watercolours that I made by soaking the nibs of old dried-up textas in water. For that hack see my post "‘Texta Juice’ from Feb 2023.

• Place paper within a large plastic box or container. Pre-cut the sheet to fit flat within the container. Those little paint cubes will feel slippery, and having them contained will stop them whizzing off the table and onto the floor.

• Have a few paper towels on hand to soak up any puddles.

• Leave any leftover bits of ice to melt onto the paper or towels. The melting paints make some great marbled effects on the paper as as they thaw.

• This is an indoor or outdoor activity.

Have fun!