Family Artwork: Balloon & Acrylic Painting on Canvas

I’ll say this right up front: this IS messy. BUT it’s all outside mess and it really is a fun project for the school holidays.

Family art!  It’s a project you all do together that becomes a feature in the home, and I love that because it means something. DO IT!  Here’s our masterpiece!

Materials

Balloons

Food colouring (the lighter colours look best: yellow, pink, orange)

Acrylic paint (variety of colours)

Paint brush

String

Large canvas

Instructions

1. Add food colouring to balloon

The best way to get the food colouring into the balloon is by a dropper, or a medicine syringe. You want to use about 3ml per balloon. I used 5 balloons.

Fool colouring droppers

Medicine syringe

2. Blow up the balloons

Blow up the balloons and set up outside.

3. Set up outside

Place the canvas on the grass and use something like a portable  clothes rack or a piece of string to hold the balloons.

4. Pop the balloon

Kids love this part. Tie the balloon on a string (or just hold) over the canvas.  Use something sharp (I used a kebab stick) to pop the balloon over the canvas.

I made sure the kids were in play clothes because you will find the food colouring and paint goes everywhere over the grass.  It’s par of the fun! Don’t be surprised if your feet look like this. It comes off after a nice long bath.

5.Lines

If you want some streaky lines, pick the canvas up and roll in different directions.

What it looks like

The food colouring gives a wonderful background for the next part of the art work. As the food colouring dries, the dots become more visible (as you can see in this pic).

6. Paint

You don’t need to wait for the food colouring to try properly, just paint right on top. Put a big blog of paint on a piece or cardboard and use a paint brush to flick it on to the canvas. The paint brush shouldn’t touch the canvas at any time.  Do this until you have the look you want. We all took turns in flicking paint. I enjoyed this part as much as the kids. It makes you feel free and alive.

7. Dry

Place the canvas on a flat surface to dry for about 24-48 hours.

8. Pack-up

Packing up was easy. I left the paint splots on the lawn. It will go eventually.  Wash the paint brush and throw out the broken balloons.

9. Date

Make sure you put the date on so you can remember.

10. Hang

Where do you think I should hang it?

Here or…

Here?

Try some family art. We are all feeling so proud right now.

More Painting on Canvas Ideas

My friend inspired me to do this and you can see some of her family art in this post: Memory Markers