We Painted the Sea

Our pirate ship has been on dry land now for a couple of weeks.  It was time to add some water and at the art table is where we did that.

I laid out large sheets of white paper and supplied two kinds of paint; water and tempera.

While they were painting I introduced two techniques to use with the paints.
On the water paint they could sprinkle salt and on the tempera paint use saran wrap to cause the colours to mix together.

Lay the saran wrap on top of your paint and smoosh it around.

Move it to another spot and smoosh some more.

Then peel the saran off to see what the paint looks like.

It's always surprising to watch the children's reactions to doing a group painting.  They are so accustom to having their own piece of paper that it takes a minute or two, or rather a stroke or two, to feel comfortable moving around the paper.  That is one reason that I didn't put the chairs at the table.  I wanted the children to have the freedom to move around the table if they wished.

When completed I cut it into waves and mounted it on the side of our ship.

The children will be surprised to see a plank was added so they can jump into the sea.