Friday, October 18, 2019

Watercolor Webs: 3 Resist Art Techniques for Toddlers

Watercolors are perfect for toddlers, add in some resist art techniques and you have some pretty cool masterpieces!



We were kindly gifted the Ooly products used in this blog. All images and opinions used in this post are our own. This post contains affiliate links.

Process art is such a great way to encourage toddlers to be creative, without there being an unrealistic expectation of a Pinterest perfect outcome. In this blog we are sharing three simple resist art techniques we used with baby sis (who is 2.5 yrs old) to make watercolor spider's webs.


Oil Pastel Resist Art Web
This is a real classic but it never fails to impress! You can use either white crayon or white oil pastel. I used a white oil pastel and drew out a spider's web on a piece of our Ooly watercolor paper.



I set up the web along with our Ooly paint brush set and Ooly Chroma Blends Neon Watercolors. Baby sis carefully chose her colors and started to add paint to the page.


The neon colors are so vibrant and as she painted you could see the web markings appearing more evidently.


I love that she even started to explore different ways to add the paint to the paper. Apparently watercolor finger painting is her thing!


The end result was pretty cool. The contrast of the neon paints with the spooky web looks great!


Tape Resist Art Web
For our second type of web, we used the tape resist technique. This is such an easy one and really lends itself well to the fact that toddlers are not accurate with their markings, and that is totally fine. I marked out a very simple web using masking tape. We also used our new Ooly Sparkle Watercolor Gel Crayons, along with the same watercolor paper and paint brush set, and some water of course.


These watercolor gel crayons are pretty awesome! First of all baby sis got to work coloring each section of the web a different color. The gel crayons moved so smoothly over the paper and they left gorgeous sparkly markings.


Once she had roughly colored in the section, she added some water using a brush. This part was so neat, the crayon markings turned into watercolor paint markings!


We worked together to fill in all of the web sections, with it being a great opportunity to work on fine motor skills, as well as color conversation.


The tape acts like a buffer between the sections which means you avoid that all too familiar toddler shade of brown.


The end result is stunning after you peel away the masking tape. Such clean web lines, and really bold and beautiful color sections.


Pipe Cleaner Resist Web Art
Ok so this one is a little different but it was one of those where I just wanted to try it to see if it worked... and it did! I hole punched the edges of the paper and then threaded through pipe cleaners to make a cool glittery pipe cleaner web. I put out our Ooly Chroma Blends Pearlescent Watercolors and the paintbrushes ready for adding some color to the web.


Baby sis was so intrigued by the pipe cleaner web! It added a fun sensory element to the process, as well as testing her fine motor skills to paint around the web.


With a process art project like this I always try to offer as much choice as possible as I really feel it enhances their engagement. So here I was sure to let her choose her colors, where she placed them on the web, and also the brush she used to do it.


Once the web was full of color, I showed her how to untangle the web and remove it. She thought this was by far the best part!


The pipe cleaners actually left a really cool fuzzy looking resist marking. Definitely a fun and unique method that we will try again.


So there you have it, three bright, bold and beautiful process art spider webs made by a 2.5 year old! Using a variety of watercolor materials definitely helped to make each method unique and engaging for baby sis. It was also cool to see her using her fine motor skills in so many different ways.

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