Maker Monday: Kids will love painting with help from straws

This week’s Maker Monday activity — painting with help from a straw — lets kids get creative and have fun “chasing” paint across a page with a straw. It’s as easy as blowing out a birthday cake. Younger kids can create colorful abstract paintings, while older kids can use the process as the basis for more complicated illustrations.

As with all Maker Monday projects, kids can make this with items you may have around the house or can pick up at a dollar store. Just follow the step-by-step instructions below. A note to kid makers: Please work with a parent or caregiver on this Maker Monday project. And always be careful when using tools of any kind, including scissors.

Maker Monday materials:

• watercolor paint
• a paintbrush
• a straw
• paper
• markers or crayons

Maker Monday instructions:

Step 1: Add plenty of water to your paint and allow it to soak in a few minutes before beginning. You want the paint to be colorful and very wet. Once the paint is ready, dip your paint brush and get lots of paint onto it. Drop a puddle of paint from the brush onto the page, then immediately grab your straw and blow the paint in the direction you want it to move. Keep the straw slightly above the paint and “chase” across the paper, creating abstract shapes.

Step 2: Kids can keep making abstract shapes or they can blow the paint around to create elements of a picture. Here, we had an underwater seascape in mind.So we blew paint around to create sea plants.

Step 3: Once the paint dries, use markers or crayons to add more details, if you wish. We added fish to our under-the-sea illustration.

Step 4: See how many different kinds of pictures you can make. Try blowing out the branches of a tree, then adding leaves and grass with markers. Or make some wild hair, then add a face to your artwork. Kids are only limited by their imaginations!

Want more at-home fun creating cool stuff and making beautiful things? Check out more Maker Monday projects right here. Do you have an idea for a Maker Monday craft project? If so, please share it with Kidsburgh! Send your maker activity ideas to info@kidsburgh.org.