Bleach and food coloring painting is a great art activity to try with your older children at home!
This project is all about experimenting, there really is no right or wrong way to do things, so let the creativity flow! PS: As we are going to use bleach for this activity, it will be more suitable to do with older children and under close supervision.
You will need:
- Water-color paper
- Food coloring (we used the powdered colorant)
- Acrylic ink
- Bleach
- Plastic lids
- Dropper
- Paintbrushes (soft round brushes are best for this)
- Color pencils
- Hardboard
- Masking tape
What to do:
Tape your water-color paper sheet to the hardboard, this will prevent the paper from crinkling, as we are going to use quite a bit of water.
Mix the colors. Add a tiny amount of powdered color to each lid. Use the dropper and add water. Use less and more water to make your solutions from strong to weak.
Make the bleach solutions by doing the following. Fill the lids with water, add one drop of bleach to the first, two drops of bleach to the second, and three drops of bleach to the third.
Paint the background, Paint wavy lines, using your most potent color solution, and paint the lighter shades using the weaker solutions. If the colors are still too dark, add more water. Experiment with the different solutions and colors.
Once the background is dry, outline your design and paint with acrylic ink.
You can now start using bleach solutions to lighten areas in your painting. Use the weakest solution for the areas you want to leave darker and the strongest solution for the areas you want the lightest.
Paint bubbles using the weaker solution for the light blue bubbles or use the dropper and the strongest solution for the areas you want white.
The bleach will not affect the acrylic ink, so do not fret if you spilled or worked over your main picture.
Once you are happy with your overall picture and then it is dry, you can use the pencils to add details to the focal points.
Lastly, remove the paper from the board and frame. There you have lovely art using bleach and food coloring.
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