Number Hunt to Marbling Activity

Number Hunt Trail to a fun Marbling Experiment.

I started Dimples on a Number Hunt. He put on his hat & grabbed his bucket at the first arrow.

Yesterday while searching the bargain shops I came across a stick it note pad shaped as an arrow.

I started with 1 with a picture of a camera, so we grabbed One camera.

the follow was an arrow with the number 2 and a dinosaur on it, Dimples followed the direction of the arrow and came across 2 dinosaurs. He put them in his bucket.

then there was an arrow with the number 3 & a pictures of a car, he followed the arrow to 3 cars and put them in his bucket. Then there was a 4 with a stick looking thing on it :-? It was a pipe cleaner, so he followed it and found 4 pipe cleaners.

The trail led him outside where I had set up an experimental Marbling Activity, like the one we done previously experimental-marbling.
Next, an Arrow with 5 lizards leading to 5 toy lizards, 6 was knives and forks, which lead to a trail of plastic cutlery. Last was 7 with a picture of a marble which went to 7 marbles just under the table that was set up.

All the things in Dimples bucket were to be used as tools in the shaving cream tub.  I set out a tray filled with shaving cream, the paint/ink, glitter, a brush, a bucket of water (to wash excess cream off and for Dimples hands) and some paper.

First he sprinkled the glitter on and i sprinkled the ink, then he picked out some dinosaurs and lizards to trudge through the mass of cream, glitter and paint. then they walked across the paper.  The idea wasn't to put prints on the paper, this was just part of Dimples process- what he wanted to do.
The main idea was to mix around the colours before putting the paper face down in the tray to absorb the swirled ink. Just like we did in our experimental marbling.

It got messy very quickly, that's how we like it (& that's why we do a lot of our activities outdoors)
Next he used the cars to make a donuts/burn out rings. I sprinkled some more colours in it and Dimples made the cars make circular tracks.  Then the paper went face down and pressed down, then i scrapped the excess cream off the top of the paper with a card & what was left was a cool swirled pattern of ink.

Dimples tried out the forks and lightly manoeuvred them through the ink, then a rolling pin, a brush, then his fingers. Dinosaurs and cars were his favourite!

The best results came from having a dull base colour (mix one colour through all the shaving cream and smooth it all. Then using bright colours to sprinkle over the top. The mix these around a bit, but not too match that they blend. When you put your paper down, smooth it out from top down first to bottom so you have no air pockets that will leave big blank spots!

Then let it sit on it face up for a little while, less than a minute & scrape it off with cardboard of a plastic spatula or take away container lid.

with a pink background

swirls

with a grey background

Experimental Marbling

Marbling: Water, Oil or shaving cream?

I recently bought a small ink marbling kit for Dimples. We have experimented before with shaving cream marbling and food colour, I have tried to mix oil based paints and poster paint but have Failed in my marbling attempts.

So first up we tried the marbling as per the instructions, ink on water in a tray. If your marbling is ink it is recommended you put a dash of vinegar in the water, so we did this.

Dimples squirts his pick of colours in the water and uses a skew to stir and mix. Then we place the paper on top, you don't submerse it and there is no need to leave it there for long.

it worked OK. Not as bright as I would have liked.

Then we tried again with some oil in the water.

You can see this one worked better, the first ones were very light & vague in colour, you can see below where the oil dots formed.  Dimples was whisking the oil and trying to separate it while he was stirring the colours.

Then we moved on to Shaving cream, this worked the best by far.  I filled the tray with shaving cream and gave dimples the inks to choose his colours and squirt them around on the shaving cream.  I love shaving cream, its so versatile. We have done a few posts using shaving cream!

The colours always look so much more vibrant on it.

Then we used a fork to slice the colours and mix them a bit.

Then we placed the paper on top of it, flattened it down and pulled it off.

This part gets a little tricky so this is were Mummy's help is needed!  You need a piece of cardboard or something to whip off the shaving cream, once you clear it off your paper the ink marbling remains on your paper.

Magic.....  This use of the ink marbling gives you a more effective, brighter piece of art compared to the usual water and oil marbling.

And as usual, with shaving cream art leads to play, play leads to mess & Dimples feels the need to attack the dog & cover him in shaving cream also. FUN! The dog doesnt look very impressed...