Suminagashi

We saw this extremely cool marbling technique over at The Artful Parent, but she credits the original post back to Inner Child Fun, so we would be remiss not to link it to her as well.  When we saw it, both RL and I knew it was something we wanted to offer to our children.  RL bought two marbling kits and she was kind enough to let me have one of them.  Something I really like about the kit is that a little ink goes a long way.....something that I didn't like about the kit is that it says "for children ages 6 and up".  HA!  Another gross underestimation of the abilities of toddlers.  ;) 

My son, who is typically not a huge fan of artsy activities.....LOVED THIS!!  He thought it was "so cool" when the paint brush touched the water and the colors dispersed, and the prints were "fantastic".  We did this on the light panel because it made the colors easier to see.  We also gently blew the colors around to swirl them as classical music was playing in the background....that really got us into a swirly, whimsical kind of mood.  LOL

Dabbing on the ink with a paintbrush

Putting card stock paper on the surface of the water to absorb the inks

SO COOL!

Pretty!

I think he liked this activity.

We've done this activity several times since we first purchased the inks.  I'm sure this will be a long standing favorite in our house.  Both my girls (3.5 years and 2.5 years) loved this as well.  

We took a little bit of a different approach.  I asked my girls if they wanted to drip the ink on out of the bottle or use a paint brush.  The decided to squeeze it right out of the bottle.  After seeing the way my 2.5 year old uses food coloring my first thought was "She is going to squeeze that until there is nothing left!"  I explained beforehand that she only needed a drop or two of each color to create her design and it was never an issue.  

Directions will come in the box.  You basically fill your container up with about 2 inches of water and start creating!  These little white circles came with the ink set.  You drop the ink on the paper and it disperses in the water.

Above is my 2.5 year old.  She loved chasing the little paper circle around to drip her ink on.  

The design

Placing the paper on.

"Look!!  I made a print.  Do you see all the colors?" - 3.5 years

"Oh, I love the way you mixed orange and blue.  The orange goes all the way around the blue.  That's cool."  - 3.5 years

Here my oldest is gently blowing on the ink.  

After numerous attempts at this I found it is best to place your prints between two pieces of paper towels and lay something heavier on top.  We did this while they were still wet and let them sit over night.  The first time we did this we just let them sit out and the edges curled up quite a bit.  

Here are our finished prints.  The top print is done with watercolor paper and the bottom with card stock.  They give you different effects.  

We plan to cut these to note card size and use them as thank you cards after my oldest daughter's art party.  

The kits can be purchased HERE.