Year of the Tiger!
In anticipation of the Lunar New Year on February 1st, the Pure Art Co. team is excited to share this tiger-themed paint marbling craft! In Chinese culture, the tiger is considered to be king of the beasts and represents bravery, confidence, and strength. Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous new year… and may it be filled with lots of creativity and artistic fun, too!
Supplies you will need:
Shaving cream (any brand will do)
Watercolor (e.g. extra-thick) paper
Baking sheet or tray (same size or larger than your paper)
Orange and black paint (food coloring also works)
A cup of water
Paintbrush
Pencil
Scissors
Nice to have: a dough scraper (or something stiff, like a small piece of cardboard)
Start by shaking up the can of shaving cream (always something kids enjoy!) and spray a layer on the pan, about the same size as your sheet of paper.
Oops! I went a little too hard on the shaving cream. If that happens to you, grab a sponge brush or kitchen spatula, and spread it out so that the layer is evened out and not too thick. For those of you with really little ones, you can convert this project into a sensory play activity and let them use their fingers to smear the shaving cream around… just make sure you wipe down and wash their hands right away so they don’t get anything into the eyes or mouth.
Soak your paintbrush in water, then use it to drip splotches of paints all over the shaving cream–you want the paint to have an extra-watery consistency when you apply it. Friendly tip: do the orange first, since the black paint will be much harder to rinse off in the water cup. If you are using food coloring, you can skip the paintbrush and just use the droppers.
Use the paintbrush to smear the color to create orange and black stripes. If you feel like there’s not a lot of color, you can always add more paint and then repeat this step. The goal is to smear, not to mix. Also, not every inch is going to be covered with paint–you should still see some white shaving cream.
Gently place the watercolor paper on top of the paint-and-shaving-cream mixture. You can press gently to ensure that some of the color transfers, but don’t press so hard that shaving cream squirts around the edges of the paper.
Gently lift the paper and turn it over. Some of the shaving cream and color should have transferred onto the paper, but not every inch will be covered. Let the paper sit face-up for about five minutes, so that the colors have time to set into the paper.
Grab a dough scraper, spatula, piece of cardboard, or some other stiff item that you can scrape off the excess shaving cream. When you are done, there shouldn’t be any bumps of shaving cream on the paper. Use the paper towel to wipe off the edges and any lingering bits of shaving cream. Set the paper aside and let it dry.
This looks pretty cool on its own, so if you want to just enjoy it as a marbled tiger stripe painting, you’re done! Otherwise, once the paper is dry, turn it over and draw the shape of what you want–you can see our tiger sketch in the photo below. No need to keep the sketch super neat or erase extra lines, since this will be the back. Once you’re satisfied with your shape, cut it out and you’re finished!
