Oil & Watercolor Painting

If you caught our post on Tuesday, you already know that we’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with oil and water. Our little nugget absolutely loved squirting a myriad of colored water droplets into a dish of clear baby oil. She was so excited, and engaged with the activity, that I decided to keep the fun going with some Oil & Watercolor Painting!

This painting technique is a wonderful process art activity for the kiddos. And if you’re behind on all of the new lingo (like I was until just recently)…process art is more about the artistic experience and the act of creating, rather than the end result. It’s all about the process. This type of art activity promotes creativity, exploration, experimentation, and imagination. When you’re not worrying about the end product, and what it should look like, it opens up a world of fun and possibility! And it’s a wonderful lesson to teach young children…that there are times when just enjoying the experience is the most important goal.

While we thoroughly enjoyed the actual process of painting with oil and watercolors, we also loved the resulting masterpieces…so it was a win/win!

This artistic activity also qualifies as a STEAM project! Again with the newer lingo. 🙂 STEAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. STEAM-based learning has become a hot topic in the field of education in recent years, and came about after a noticeable lack of young adults entering scientific, engineering, or technological fields here in the US, compared with other countries. One of the main principles of STEAM-based learning is to teach children how to bridge various subjects, as well as build problem solving skills!

This particular painting activity bridges the worlds of science and art. Not only do the kiddos get to be creative on their paper canvas, but they also get to make the scientific observation that water and oil do not mix. There are two main reasons why these two liquids repel one another:

Water and oil have different densities. Oil is less dense than water, and if you combine both liquids in a jar, you will notice that the water always falls to the bottom.
Water and oil have different polarities. Water molecules are polar, and they will only stick to other polar liquids. Oil, on the other hand, is a non-polar liquid. Non-polar liquids only stick to other non-polar molecules.

Isn’t science fun? And combining science with artistic expression, makes it ten times better! I’m so glad that we stumbled across this amazingly cool idea, over on the Friends Preschool Instagram account (@friendsartlab).

Supplies:

Vegetable Oil
Liquid Watercolors (we made our own using Good Cooking’s Gourmet Liqua-Gel Food Coloring)
Pipettes or Eye-Droppers
White Card Stock Paper
Tray/Rimmed Cookie Sheet

Instructions:

Pour the vegetable oil and liquid watercolors into small containers or bowls.
Place a piece of white card stock on a tray/rimmed cookie sheet (to collect any mess).
Grab a pipette and start placing droplets of watercolors onto the card stock.
Switch it up by placing droplets of veggie oil onto the paper.
Continue to swap between the liquid watercolors and the vegetable oil, until the paper is covered to your liking.
Once you are satisfied with your painting, gently (and slowly) lift the paper from the corners (or sides) and observe as the oil and watercolors start rolling around, while still resisting one another.
When you’ve tired of watching the oil and watercolors cascade across the paper, gently raise the paper, letting the excess oil and watercolors fall onto the tray/cookie sheet.
Set the paper aside to dry completely, before hanging it on display for everyone to admire!

Our little nugget had a blast with this process art activity! Every time she finished with one painting, she immediately requested another piece of card stock. We now have five beautiful oil and watercolor masterpieces hanging up in our home!

Our absolute favorite part was watching the watercolor droplets pool up and slide around on top of the oil-soaked areas! And watching all of the oil and water glide around on top of the paper (when we lifted up one of the corners)…of course. 🙂

We loved every single thing about this creative painting process! I’m 100% certain that this particular activity will be requested on a very frequent basis.