Crepe Paper Paint and Homemade Liquid Watercolors

It has been fun great sharing all our process based art activities and homemade art and play supplies. Today we have one more easy and unique art activity with crepe paper. Few months ago we used crepe paper and had fun with our “just add water” art. This art activity is similar with another small spin. That tiny twist makes this art activity whole lot funner and adds that much loved sensory element. I tore up few sheets of crepe paper ( kids would LOVE tearing) and sorted them into 3 colors. Then soak the crepe paper bits in a bowl of water over night. That’s it. There is a bit of discussion about crepe paper - you can work with party streamers and I have tested that it works with regular streamers. Colors bleed from some tissue papers and this will definitely work with bleeding tissue paper. So take your pick and see which material works for you. I suggest you start off with regular crepe paper sheets or streamers. The color from the crepe paper would have run out and you would have your own “liquid watercolor”. Before handing over the paint brushes try this super fun way of painting with watercolor.The following day invite your kids for some sensory fun induced art activity. Demonstrate gently squeezing the bits of crepe and using the remaining “color” from the paper to paint.

My older squeezed not all but a bit of water out of the crepe paper and used the bits to give a nice water color wash.

It was both a fun sensory experience as well an open ended process art activity. Both explored with different colors and patters. I’d highly recommend that you do this art activity on a thick water color paper. We did not have any on hand and went ahead on a regular printer paper..It was still fun and we did not tear any sheets. The art dried perfectly fine..Thicker paper is recommended so you avoid the chances of rips since we are working with quite a bit of water here.

My preschooler especially enjoyed this unique activity and she likened the whole process to wiping off things.. “Look mom, I’m just wiping but I’m painting too. It’s fun”

This art activity was really helpful in another way- it tested my toddler’s hand control and in effect was great for her fine motor skills. She saw her sis squeeze the water out of the crepe paper really gently so that some color was left. She tried squeezing gently and tried painting with the crepe paper scraps. As you can she went over board sometimes and was right on target sometimes. I find that doing the same art activities with multiple ages need not be daunting. In our case it has been rewarding. Initially it was tricky and there were many territorial flights and problems following directions and the usual issues.. The more we did the art activities together the better the kids have become. We have come a long way in the last in terms of working together around the table on the same art project and I carefully choose the art activities when I have both the kids working with the same materials and on the same project.

Once the kids were done, I filtered out the crepe paper and poured the remaining “water colors” in individual paper cups and set them out with brushes. This new set up with brushes and cups sparked some more interest. During another session they came back and painted with the faux water colors.

While the colors may not have the same vibrancy as store-bought liquid water colors they did look just as good as the solid water colors.. The washed effect was so pretty.

I wish I had more colors though! But the kids did not mind though. If you observe closely they got creative with the available colors and did experiment with the concentration of each color on the paper.

Thanks for reading