A New Art Experience: Gooey Glitter Paint

This was a new experience for Jack. My friend Jess (she writes a lovely blog called Little Cricket) put me on to it. She brought it as an activity to our Reggio-inspired playgroup. It’s non-toxic wallpaper paste and food colouring.

Although Jess’ looked a little different to ours, I think I may have added a little too much powder to the water when I was making the paste. Instead of nice flowing paint we ended up with this gel-like substance. Not to worry though.

My kids like to blend all the paint together. So I like to help them choose two colours which go well together and then make up a few different shades in each colour. This way when they blend the colours the result is still aesthetically pleasing rather than a big brown blah. Today was two different shades of green and blue.

And I finally delved into the world of glitter (thank you Anna) to make up these wonderfully gooey glitter paints.

A little bit of painting but mostly exploring. This is what usually happens when Jack experiences a new paint or art medium. He squeezes it between his fingers, rubs it on his hands, all the while finding out what this paint does; how it moves.

This type of experience is what I like most about open-ended Reggio-inspired art. The time and space to explore without expectation to create.

I have to say, I almost didn’t post this activity. You should have seen the state of Jack’s clothes after he had finished! I thought for sure it wasn’t going to wash out. Not that it mattered,  he was wearing old clothes (we don’t have smocks) but I didn’t want you guys trying it and having stained clothes. But amazingly it washed straight out, no stains, nothing. So give it a go.

A happy accident of too much powder in the wallpaper paste mix, a little glitter and you get gooey glitter paint. Another one for us to add to our outdoor art activities.