Homeschool Art Class: Shaving Cream Marbled Paper

This was the project I did withe the K-1st grade kids at homeschooler art class today...

Shaving Cream & Food Coloring Marbled Paper

This project was one of those projects that I have read about for years in various kid-craft books and craft blogs, but I've never actually done it... so I decided to do a test run last night before trying to bungle through the project for the first time with the kids there.

The tutorial said you can use liquid watercolors or food coloring.  I used liquid water colors first.  I used a small baking tray to keep things tidy...sprayed some shaving cream on...smoothed out the top as well as I could...and dripped some liquid watercolors on top...then swirled the colors with a chopstick (sorry, forgot to take a picture of the "swirly" colors before printing) 

Lay a piece of paper on top, pressing down lightly to be sure the color takes...then carefully peel the paper off.  Then take a flat-edged piece of cardboard or plastic (I used cardboard, but I's suggest plastic for easier cleanup) and scrape off the excess shaving cream to reveal the design!

I was curious how using food coloring would differ from the liquid watercolors, so I used those next..

I found the colors are much more vibrant when using the food coloring.  (I may have watered down the watercolors too much though)
I got an interesting effect with the watercolors that we left over on the shaving cream, since I used the same shaving cream instead of cleaning off the tray and using clean stuff.  I think it added a cool dimension.

 Watercolors on top, Food Coloring on the bottom.  I had a lot of fun doing these!

The kids were very excited to do this project!

I had them use the food coloring, since it provided more vibrant colors.  They were very good about carefully dropping the food coloring and not wasting it (I told them they could use 4 drops of each color...although I probably could have had them use only 2 or 3).  And they were also very good about waiting their turn to use the next color. 

The kids took note that the yellow food coloring looks orange/red when it first comes out of the dropper and I tried explaining the concept of "concentrated" color, but I think the concept went over their heads.  Plus, I'm not sure I explained it very well.  But they ended up understanding that it was yellow once the drop spread a bit into the shaving cream and they swirled it around.

The designs turned out very nicely, and the mothers were all impressed when I took the kids all home!  The older siblings want to do the project at their next class!  The project doesn't take long, so I can have them do at least one print before or after we do the project I have planned.  (I'll have to get more shaving cream though.  We ran out today!)

It occurred to me today that I have seen this kind of thing done before at the Lilac Festival this past summer, but using water and special ink/paint instead of the shaving cream and food coloring, and printing the design onto silk scarves instead of paper.

After doing 2 more shaving cream prints and some free-draw time, the kids worked on a coloring page until the end of class.

 I found this printable coloring page via Pinterest earlier this week, which is SO perfect, since I have a couple perfectionists in both the "little" kids and "big" kids classes that get frustrated when they don't get things "just right".  And I am always telling the kids that "it's okay to make mistakes".  (If you couldn't tell, it is one of the perfectionists whose page I took a picture of!)