Do you know what resist art is?
I didn’t either until a while ago. When I learned about it, I was itching to do an art activity with my grandkids.
I was finally — FINALLY — able to do a Valentine themed one with my granddaughter.
While grandkids of all ages will enjoy this art activity, tweens and teens will especially like it because they can create their own designs with the glue gun.
Resist art is an art technique that combines of two mediums that are incompatible. In this case, it’s the glue and the paint.
Let me explain how to do this activity. All you need is paint, a sponge paint brush, a glue gun, and paper. (Do you notice what’s missing in the picture below? That’s right. The glue gun. That should have been a clue to the photography problems that I would have during this activity . . . sigh . . . )
It’s kind of hard to see the design I drew with the hot glue gun so click on the picture to bring up a larger size of the picture. Hopefully, that will help you see the design better.
Squirt some paint onto waxed paper or a plastic lid from a whipped topping container. Generously add water to water down the acrylic paint.
Then, simply brush the paint across the page. This should create a watercolor picture.
Did you catch the word ‘should?’
Let’s pause here for a moment. I need to provide an explanation of what really happened during this activity.
Do you ever have an activity for your grandkids to do and it doesn’t turn out how you envisioned it? This was that activity for me.
First, my granddaughter saw the Valentine sugar cookies sitting over on the counter. She wanted to eat them NOW!
I wanted her to do the art activity first so I told her that she could have one afterwards. We should paused so she could eat the cookie. Things would have turned out better. Live and learn. (The hard way!)
Since she was so intent on the cookies, she did not have any patience to do the art project. She kept wanting to rush things. She wouldn’t let me water down the paint to a thin consistency. So, the paint was thicker than what I had wanted. The paint was too dark on the picture and you couldn’t see the glue design very well. (I guess we should have used regular watercolor paint.)
After brushing across the pictures two times she was finished. She wasn’t interested in painting in the whole picture. She. Was. Finished. I insisted suggested that she paint a wee bit more.
Because she was finished in just a moment, I didn’t have time to grab my camera and take a picture of the painting process. So I don’t have a picture of the ‘during’ process.
Here are a couple of ‘after’ pictures. See how dark the paint is? It isn’t the pastel color that I envisioned.
I had two pictures for her to paint. Here’s one of them.
Here is the other one. There isn’t much difference between the two. (I made 2 because I thought that my granddaughter would have fun painting them. Silly me.)
After we set the pictures aside to dry, I let my granddaughter have a cookie. And then another one. And another. She ate 4 cookies and 2 glasses of milk!
About this time, my daughter wandered in to see our project. When she saw that her daughter was eating the cookies (it was only 10:30 in the morning), my daughter told me that my granddaughter wouldn’t eat her breakfast that morning.
That explained everything!
By the time my granddaughter got to my house, she was starving to death! When she saw the cookies, that was all she could think about. She didn’t care about painting. She wanted to EAT!
I learned several things. First, if your grandchild is hungry, she won’t be interested in any activity until her tummy is full.
I learned that I should have used watercolor paint instead of just trying to water down acrylic paint.
I learned that watercolor paper would have produced a more ‘watercolor’ effect on the picture.
I learned that even though I thought the activity was a bust my granddaughter still enjoyed it. Shortly after she finished her milk and cookies and we were playing creatively with a huge empty box, she looked up at me and told me I was her favorite grandma!
My heart melted.
Valentine’s Day is almost here. You still have time to do one last craft with your grandchildren. This resist art craft takes minimal preparation and your grandkids will love doing it.
If they aren’t hungry!
