I volunteer at an daycare center for mentally handicapped adults and wanted them to experience painting.
Since watercolor trays have very little paint in each cell I researched and found recipes to make my own watercolors!
We all really enjoyed painting paper plates and plan on doing it again soon!
Total Time: 15 minutes to mix, plus 1 day to dry
Yield: a dozen individual cells
Source: happyhooligans.com
Supplies:
- 4 Tbsp baking soda
- 2 Tbsp white vinegar
- 1/2 tsp light or golden corn syrup
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch
- 4 each drops food coloring
- 1 egg carton, small muffin tin, or ice cube tray
Steps:
- In a 2 cup measuring cup mix baking soda and vinegar. It will fizz awhile, just wait for it to stop.
- Add corn syrup and corn starch to the mixture and mix well until the corn starch has dissolved into the mixture. It will become this strange feeling mixture, not totally wet nor totally dry. Like Oobleck!
- I placed one teaspoon into each egg carton well. You may use small muffin tins or even ice cube trays if you prefer. You may certainly double that mixture for thicker little paint cubes with fewer cells. I was experimenting!
- I added 4 drops of food coloring to each cell just because I wanted vibrant colors. You may choose to make yours more pastel with a drop or two less.
- Mix the paint and dye well with a toothpick, Popsicle stick, or small demitasse spoon.
- Then I just set it aside for 24 hours. I did peek occassionaly and they looked great! At the end I could actually pop the paint out of the egg carton cells.
- They worked great! I painted this picture using them!
