Some of the best creative notions come about from happy accidents, like today’s Kids Art Activity Project, Colour Bleed Art.
Recently my youngest created a sweet little mermaid illustration with felt tip pens. She was disappointed however to find that her art had sustained water. Yes, it happens if we leave artwork where food and beverage prep takes place, like say, the kitchen!
Much moodiness was however averted when I shared with her the beauty of the water-stained art, which had bled and saturated her illustration into a hyper-realistic underwater setting.
The illustration was wonderful, to begin with, and now it was pure magic to gaze upon. The little one skipped away with lightness in her heart, and a renewed belief that her art had not been ruined, but enhanced by some serendipitous water staining.
And this little story is the creative inspiration for this Colour Bleed Art tutorial, such a fun kids art activity.
I’ve created a printable template with designs to color in that you can then artistically water stain to create unique mini artworks.
You will need:
- 2x sheets of printer paper
- Water-based Felt tip marker pens
- Water spray bottle filled with water
- Paper towel
- Iron and ironing board
- Printer (optional if choosing to print template)
How to:
1. Download and print the template at 100%.
2. With your felt tip marker pens, color in the template designs. Go to town with this, using lots of different colors.
3. Mist your colored-in template using the water spray bottle. You can re-purpose an empty and rinsed out ‘cleaning product’ spray bottle for this.
The water will bleed, saturate and mix the colours on the paper. How amazing is this!
4. Move your template around to get the colors running over the page if you so wish. This reminds me of marbling.
5. Place a piece of paper over your wet artwork, and press together to soak up excess water. As an added bonus you have now created a semi-transferred print (art in its own right).
6. To dry and flatten your artwork you can use an iron. Set the iron to low, and switch the steam setting to ‘off. Place the artwork on the iron board with a paper towel covering it. Gently iron press the artwork.
7. To finish fully drying out your colour bleed artwork, put the template outside in the sun to dry or leave in a warm dry location, like near a heater.
Now there are lots of different things you can do with this creative colour bleed art technique. Use your artwork as wrapping paper, turn it into a card, frame it, or even use it for scrapbooking.