Painting with Homemade Paint

After the last messy painting session, a friend gave me a splendid idea of making my own paint. I have never thought of making my own paint. It sounds like a crazy idea for a twin mom. My hands and legs (literally) are kept busy countering their fights and meltdowns, “Where got time?” (in Singlish) But since I’m not willing to part with more money paint for another painting session, I kept that in mind but I didn’t expect to do it so soon.

Y crept up to my computer sneakily on this day and saw the pictures of the messy painting after I finished blogging. K was rummaging the shopping bag and dug out the squeeze bottles that I bought. They were a steal at S$0.40 each at Japan Home and I swept the whole shelf. Then they started harassing me to let them paint.

Of course I’m not willing to take out my brand new bottles of Crayola paint so I told them we are going to make our own. It’s so easy that I managed to whip something out when I have no idea at all how to start. I simply put some corn flour and water in a pot and put to boil on the stove. While waiting for the starch to cool, I got out my box of water color tubes and let them choose their own colors to put into the squeeze bottles. After that, pour the starch in and shake. Tata!

Ok, I know this sounds like crap tutorial but since it was so impromptu, I didn’t know how much flour and water I used and with sticky hands, it was not possible to take pictures while doing it and making sure that my 2 toddlers won’t fight themselves to death or run round the house with the corn starch. I will do this again and next time, I’m gonna share with you a better tutorial.
Here’s Paint in Progress.

Y was making tracks with the paint.

K kept shouting "My car is stuck in the mud!!" while painting.

Drip Painting with Watercolors

What You Need:

An easel or any upright painting space

Watercolors

Dropper (I got mine from Daiso)

Containers for watercolor

Paper

Method:

I showed the boys how to pick up water using the dropper and how to drop the water and they were ready to explore.

I let them choose 4 colors each and was surprised to see that Y chose darker colors while K chose all the bright colors.

While painting, they used different techniques. Y squeezed the dropper and splatter on the paper while K just drop a little water at a time and used the dropper like a pencil to draw his train and track (according) to him. It’s really interesting how different children explore. They enjoyed this painting session very much and it lasted for 40 mins. K could continue painting but I think Y got jealous when I was taking pictures of K’s painting. So, I had to quickly redirect them to another activity before Y starts throwing the droppers and pouring the paint.

I thought the artworks produced were frame worthy. Left belongs to Y and right belongs to K.