Spin yoghurt painting

D is a massive fan of spin art (see here for details) so when I saw this idea on BabbleDabbleDo I knew he'd love it.

What you need:

Yoghurt paints

Paper

Large plastic box

Cardboard

Pencils

First I cut a long piece of paper off our roll (so useful for messy process art like this!) and covered the bottom of the plastic box. Then I got D and showed him how to push a pencil through the middle of a cardboard circle (I just cut some out from the lid of a box we had lying around) to make a spinner.

Then he put some spoonfuls of yoghurt paint onto his wheel

And spun! It was much easier for him to hold the top of the pencil and quickly twist his hand left and right repeatedly rather than actually spinning and letting go like older children/adults can. He did valiantly try that method a few times but always went back to the first way :)

He loved watching the paint spin out and trying to guess where it would splatter next!

After a few tries we discovered the downside of our very makeshift spinners... 

However the pencils coming loose wasn't going to stop our fun and Iz decided she wanted in on the action.

D then emptied all the remaining yoghurt into the plastic box and Iz had some messy yoghurt sensory play :)

 

Obviously this is art that you enjoy on the day but don't keep longer than that (hmmmm don't much fancy week-old yoghurt sitting around on our artwork wall!) but it's perfect if you'd quite like to try some messy play but don't want to get too messy ;)

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When D's a bit older (and better at spinning pens!) we're going to try making pictures with CDs and felt-tips - I saw the idea online somewhere but now can't remember where so if you've seen the original post please let me know so I can link them here :)

Spin art t-shirts

After I read this blog post by The Jersey Momma I really wanted to try making some t-shirts of our own. D loves doing spin art (you can read about how to do the normal version here) and often wanders up to me clutching the salad spinner so I knew he'd be keen :)

We followed exactly the same approach as before except we used fabric paints. These were much more "solid" than the poster paints we've used before so took much more muscle to spin them out. D gave it a good try but I had to help with the spinning to generate enough "splatter". Because of this it was harder to generate as big patterns so instead we did one circle, waited for paint to dry on fabric and then the next day did another circle with different colours over the top :)

We also used stickers in a "resist-type" method, so their initials stayed white in amongst the colours. The sticker on D's one peeled off halfway through though but I just touched up the initial with white fabric paint afterwards. If you do use stickers I'd advise peeling them off while the paint is still wet - I waited about 20 minutes after making the imprint - as if you wait til it's dry there is a risk some paint might flake off as you peel the sticker away...

I love how they turned out :)

D helping take the pictures :)

Even though the fabric paints were slightly harder work it now means I can wash the t-shirt/babygro as much as I like and I know the pattern will stay firm. I might even make them into small cushions or bags once the kids have outgrown the clothes :)

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Have you done any spin art? Or decorated your own t-shirts? I'd love to hear more ideas for us to try!

Spin Art

I can remember going to the Newbury Show when I was 11 and paying an exorbitant (to me at the time!) amount of money to make a spin art picture. If only I'd known how easy it was to do it at home!

What you need:

A salad spinner (make sure there are no holes in the bottom!)

Paper plates (or card)

Paint (poster paints or tempera work well)

An enthusiastic child

It is so easy to do:

1. Cut your paper plates to the right size

2. Secure in the inner spinner compartment with a big lump of blu tac

3. Squirt in some paint in the centre

4. Spiiiiiiiiiiiin (D loves doing this but needs a bit of encouragement to get enough speed up to 'spin out' the paint. He can do it by himself if we used regular kids paints but not when we tried the thicker fabric paints (in our spin art t-shirts)

5. Leave to dry and then admire :)

Raring to go...

Having a sneaky peek to see how it's looking

Ta-da! Finished picture

How pretty are they? You could make lovely cards from them, or gift tags, or even gift wrap if you used less paint and thinner paper (but not too thin or it'll rip when spinning).

Iz is a bit young to join in but D's cousin (21 months) quickly got the hang of it:

D could happily do this activity all afternoon and its a fun way of talking about colours, seeing which ones come out strongest, adding a different colour and responding to change the whole picture etc.

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We've also recently made "Spin art" t-shirts (thank you Jersey Momma for the idea - see her original post here) - you can read how we did it here :)

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Have you done any spin art recently? Do you even own a salad spinner?! We had to buy one specially (£5 on Amazon) but it was definitely worth it - it's one of D's most favourite things to do at the moment :)

I'd love to hear any other ways to incorporate spin art into an activity, or any more ideas for using the pictures (as I think we're going to end up with a lot of them!!).