Snow and Colors

I filled the sensory table with snow, and set out small bowls of colored water. I handed children paintbrushes, thinking that they would paint the snow with the colored water.

It turned out that wasn’t what they were interested in at all.

Some of the children used the paintbrushes to stir or scoop up the snow, but otherwise abandoned them while they explored the more enticing items – the containers of colored water.

They poured the water from one container to the next, then dripped the water into a steady stream onto the white snow, watching as the colors spread. Once the water was all used up, they asked for more.

Seeing that the focus of the activity had changed, I quickly filled two small bins with colored water and put them on either side of the sensory table. The children raced to scoop out the water and pour it into colorful puddles in the snow.

Soon the snow was a multicolor patchwork, and later as it melted, a mass of brownish ice.

The next day, now that I knew what the children’s plans were for using the materials, I set up the area differently. I abandoned my idea of paintbrushes and provided craft sticks, which would be easier to stir the snow with. I added scoops that were easier to manipulate and pour from. And of course, bins of colored water at either end of the table, since the children had made it clear that pouring water and mixing were the most important aspects of this experience.

Through the morning the snow changed from white to yellow and blue, and eventually to shades of foamy sea green. Giving up my original idea in favor of following the children’s lead brought a whole new dimension to their play, in a beautiful way.

Wet on Wet Painting

As the children become more familiar with the process of painting on paper, I introduce different textures and experiences. When it comes to exploration with art materials, color, and texture, the differences between “art” “sensory” and “science” activities are more related to teacher perceptions and categories than how children manipulate and experience the materials.

“Wet-on-Wet” painting involves painting with thinned paint on wet paper. I used watercolor paper, since it absorbs more liquid than construction paper. The paint was tempera with some extra water mixed in.

One child started with a hesitant stroke, then watched as the puddle of blue paint seemed to float above the already wet paper.

Another child stabbed at the paper with her brush, watching as waves of paint splattered out, and then splattered out again.

Soon, the wet, colorful surface gave invitation to touch, and to experience the sensation of water on hands, and to consider the differences in texture of a wet piece of paper and a wet table or tray.

Some children were drawn to use hands, others to use brushes, as paint and water floated, mixed, and swirled, each child choosing their own exploration and process.

Painting With (and on) Fingers and Hands

“Paint goes on the paper.”
“Use your brush, not your hands.”

“We’re not finger painting today.”

I’ve heard these phrases over and over, as teachers try to guide the children to use whatever painting tool and surface that had been provided, and not stick their fingers into the paint. Or not trace the brush up their hands and arms, or not finish their work by swiping their hands across and around the paper.

The fact that each time a paint is provided, children are drawn to use their hands and fingers means that there’s something compelling to them about using those tools rather than a brush or whatever object the teacher had planned. If this is how the materials are speaking to the children, and we truly believe that art should be focused on process, not product, then why do teachers spend so much time trying to redirect children from their innate drive to create art in the most tactile way?

Last week I put out the paint trays with q-tips (cotton swabs). For the younger children, the small q-tips are easier to manipulate than large brushes. Also, knowing that it’s likely some children will abandon the brush, or use all the brushes at once, q-tips are more manageable for me and are easier to clean up.

The work started with children using the q-tips to make designs and blocks of color on their paper.

But then, the exploration shifted. A finger, and then a hand, became the palette to apply paint to.

 And then, the rainbow striped finger became the tool to apply paint to the paper.

 None of this was random. The children concentrated as they applied paint, layer by layer, observing as the colors blended or not, noticing stripes and dots and waves across their hands. They noticed the shades mixing together, as red and yellow became orange and blue and green and red became black. 

As they moved the paint with precision across their hands, I wondered, why would we value the art created on the palm of a hand any less than the art created on paper?

Why stop the fingers dipped in paint, why send the children off to wash the masterpiece off their hands before it’s completed? Instead, why not move into the child’s world, and appreciate the work before us – even if it’s on a hand instead of paper.

"I'm Doing Mixed Up Colors"

My class has been exploring the different textures of painting tools: brushes of different thickness and shapes, sponges, balls, and most recently, small round sponges on the ends of sticks. The actual name of these is "sponge stippler" (as I discovered after a long internet search), and they provided a novel textural experience than the other tools, The small size was easy for the children to control, and the sponge held just enough paint to glide across the paper, but not so much that it dripped.

One of the physical properties of sponge painting is the way that colors mix together, which became the main focus of the children's attention.

"I'm doing mixed up colors."

"Look I'm putting red to yellow."

"And blue to red."

"What's that kind of color?"

"It changes yellow to red."

I've written before about teachers watching and not talking as children work. The discovery process in this painting project wasn't about discovering what would happen when the colors mixed together. It was about the experience in the moment of combining colors, of swirling one over the other and letting the children create and observe change as it happened. "I'm putting red to yellow" isn't about making orange: it is, as another child said, "I'm doing mixed up colors."

As a teacher it's sometimes hard to just sit and watch the "doing". One of the children began her painting by using the sponges as stamps, making large dots all over her paper, and then carefully tracing them with more paint. But then, she moved her sponge in broad strokes, obliterating the circles, layer after layer. To make more circles, and sponge over them again. It's sometimes hard to watch the process of creation upon creation, of mixing upon mixing, and just let it happen without questions or comments, or interruptions to the flow. But I'm not the one in charge of the "doing". The "doing mixed up colors" belongs to the child.

The Art Was Science, and the Science Was Art

The materials were liquid water color paints, eye droppers, and coffee filters.

The children noticed the paint colors, but their focus quickly shifted to the process of putting the paint on the filters with the droppers, and the mechanism of the droppers themselves.

Can you use one dropper to put paint in another?

Can you fill all the droppers at the same time?

What would happen if you put a new filter on top of one that's already full of paint?

 

This art activity wasn't all art. But this science activity wasn't all science. This was an exploration of color, of water, of texture, of material. The activity might not have been about creating a product, but the product of color and liquid interacting with solid and diffusion was a product. The art was in the process: the kinetic, changing, evolving process. The art was science, and the science was art.

Cornstarch Goop

Cornstarch goop (aka 'Oobleck") is a perfect medium for scientific exploration. There are only two ingredients – cornstarch and water. As the children mix it together, its properties and texture change, providing opportunities to observe and figure out what has happened, and what might happen next.

I set up the activity on individual trays, so each child can have control over their own exploration process from beginning to end. There’s no exact “recipe”, but I start with giving each child an equal amount of water and cornstarch. They can decide if they need more.

Adding color extends the activity by giving more dimensions to observe and interact with. The color also makes it easier to see the physical changes in the mixture, since the color mixes with the more liquid part of the mixture, floating above the solid goop. I used liquid watercolor, which doesn’t stain the way food coloring can.

 The goop is also a medium for studying color mixtures. Diffused through the thin cornstarch mixture, the colors swirl and combine slowly, allowing the children to control the combinations, and observe the effects of their actions.

Color, Light, Shadow

I sometimes add liquid watercolor paint to the water in the sensory table just to change the visual appearance, but also because the colored water is easier for the children to see as they move it through clear containers and tubes.

One morning, as I filled the sensory table, the eastern light came in at a perfect angle and hit the water just so.

As the children played, the interaction of light and shadow on the colored water added a new dimension to their play. They moved containers and objects back and forth, between the light and the dark, observing changes in appearance.

Some children noticed the light reflected from the water in the table onto the ceiling, and watched as it moved across the ceiling during the morning.

“Look at the light!” “I see it!” “The water is shining!” The children can’t understand why the water is shining, or why the light shines in some places but not others. In fact, they weren’t even curious about why. But this simple moment of wonder in discovery, and opportunity to observe an event that it happens, is as important in the scientific process as the theoretical reasoning, predictions, and conclusions that will happen later.