With Autumn in full swing we have now started our Autumn crafting and I just love it! This is my favourite time of year! Over the last few days we have been making the most beautiful watercolour pumpkins using our Paint Sticks - recycling some cardboard that I always keep aside from deliveries.
Paint sticks are one of our most favourite art resources. They're so quick drying, perfect for little hands and mess free. They're super handy so I always keep a stash in my bag too when we venture out so they're on hand.
You can buy them directly from us too! We stock them in the Learning and Exploring Through Play Shop.
This is the first time we used the paint sticks for watercolours and I was really impressed with how this turned out. We started off by grabbing some cardboard I had stashed away. Using a pencil we sketched out some pumpkin shapes. Sketching is a new skill we're trying out with my daughter. She always does such thick solid lines so she's been enjoying experimenting with sketching.
Paint Stick Ideas - Paint on Ice
Once they were sketched out we started adding our paint sticks. we added 1-3 colours before dipping our brushes in water and using circular motions to start lifting some of the colour for blending. As the sticks dry so quickly you don't want to colour the whole pumpkin in as it will be much hard to lift the colour to blend.
Paint Stick Ideas - Paint Stick Nature Scanners
We worked our way across the pumpkins and once they were all filled with colour that we had blended with the water we left them a couple of hours to dry.
Paint Stick Ideas - Paint Stick Pumpkin Suncatchers
It's really important to wait until the cardboard has fully dried as the water does weaken it. Once dried you are fine to move on to the next stage but if you rush in and do it too quickly then you could end up making holes in your art with the pens.
Paint Stick Ideas - Paint Stick Abstract Art
We used crayons felts to define the pumpkins. We carefully traced over our sketched lines and it made them pop even more!
Lets see this activity in action:
Where can you get Paint Sticks from? You can buy them directly from us! We stock them in the Learning and Exploring Through Play Shop.
Cardboard can be really tricky to cut out. I found using a craft knife has been a game changer with cutting cardboard. I paid around £3.50 for a really good one where you can snap the blades once they start getting blunt. Its a great and easy way to keep your crafting blade nice and sharp. You can cut a lot more intricate details too. Highly recommend getting one if you haven't got one already.
Once all cut out our watercolour painted pumpkins were complete and they look great! They will make lovely decorations around the home during the Autumn period.
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