Thursday 11 June 2015

Thumb Printing and Mixing Colours ~ Painted Flowers

The kids had so much fun the first time they experimented with Thumb Print Art, I thought we'd have another go. Not only is thumb printing fun, it's an easy way to produce a piece of artwork that you will be happy to have hanging on the wall.

Thumb Printing with Kids... a quick, fun way to paint flowers ~ Threading My Way


Materials:
  • paper
  • paint - non toxic, washable paint for children
  • paint pots -  we used plastic bowls and lids.
  • paint brushes
  • tissues
To start them off, I showed them some Fingerprint Poppies over at Crafty Morning, and together we talked about how the poppies were done. As they moved from the computer to their art table, the kids chatted about how they would make their own flowers - not poppies, but flowers with lots of different colours.


We encountered a slight hitch when I realised we were down to two paint colours - yellow and blue. Not a problem. As Little Miss said, Flowers often have yellow in the middle.
  • Dip one thumb into the blob of yellow paint.
  • Remove excess paint. That's what we used the lid for. You can use anything, as long as it's clean and kid friendly.
  • Stamp a thumb print for the centre of the flower.
  • Remove paint from thumb with a tissue.
  • Repeat with blue paint and stamp petals around the yellow.


Only having blue and yellow was a good exercise for the kids in mixing two colours to make green. If you want to save paint, start with a small amount of blue. 


We had to keep adding lots of yellow to get the desired green colour.


  • Paint the stems with a thin brush.

Little Mister painted one straight stem for each flower. Little Miss, on the other hand, painted curvy lines for stems. She was unsure what to do about the flowers at the top. I suggested lines that curved beside the other flowers, but she decided they would be floating flowers.


  • Paint the grass with a thick brush.

Little Miss also added streaks of blue to the grass with her finger. She's at that stage where she always paints a sun in her pictures, too.

I love to see the creativity displayed by the kids when we paint together. It's wonderful to see how they run with an idea, adapting and changing as they see fit, and turn it into an artwork that they are proud to show off.

Same initial inspiration; two different outcomes.

Thumb Printing with Kids... a quick, fun way to paint flowers ~ Threading My Way

Seems that Thumb Print Art is a popular painting activity. In my last post:

Thanks for leaving me ideas for future thumb printing and painting sessions.


... Pam

10 comments:

  1. Lovely pictures, I think sometimes coming down to just yellow and blue can be very beneficial! As soon as red is added to the mix I find pictures turn a little brown!

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  2. Another cute kids project! They can really surprise you will their art works. Now I am wondering if this thumbprints can be nicely done on fabrics ;)

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  3. This is a really cool craft project! I'll definitely be trying this one with my kiddies, thanks for sharing!
    #TeamMM

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  4. What a cute and fun activity!

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  5. Looks like a fun idea :)

    Thanks for sharing at Creative Mondays

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  6. Thank you for sharing! I'm going to have to try this with my 3 year old!

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  7. I love this! My 5 year old would really enjoy this! I have a blog post about a similar activity (using bingo markers) You might like to take a look at! http://homeschoolingcraftymama.blogspot.co.uk/

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  8. Great idea! Especially for cold, rainy days :)

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  9. Cute! I was thinking about painting with my daughter today. Thanks for sharing at Submarine Sunday!!! Happy 4th of July!

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  10. Cute! I was thinking about painting with my daughter today.

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