Blow Painting With Straws
Painting with a brush is boring, why not make a blow painting with straws!
Try this fun art activity for kids and use a straw to blow paint around to make amazing patterns and designs on the paper!
This blow painting activity is always a hit with the preschoolers I teach, and I know your kids will love it too!
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Blow painting is a fun process art activity that kids of all ages just love. Preschoolers will love this fun way to paint and older kids will enjoy experimenting with this simple art technique!
The focus of this painting activity is definitely the process, not the product! Watching the paint move around the paper as you blow through the straw is lots of fun, and it’s almost mesmerising watching the colours combine as the paint spiders off in all directions under the force of your breath!
Blow painting is also a fun way to work on oral motor development. As kids blow through the straw they are working the muscles of their mouth and tongue which helps with language development and eating. And all those deep breaths makes blow painting a great clam down activity too!
Straw Blow Painting for Kids
Materials
- Straws – one for each child
- Diluted washable kids paint (liquid tempera works great)
- Paper
- Containers for paint – one for each colour
- A spoon or eye dropper – one for each colour of paint.
The paint for blow painting needs to be quite watery so it will flow across the paper, so mix in lots of water until the paint drips off the spoon. If you are finding it hard to make the pant move even though you are blowing a lot, add a bit more water.
You can also add some food colouring or liquid watercolours to regular tempera paint if you want really bright vibrant colours!
Cutting the straws in half can be helpful for younger kids so they can get closer to the paper, and you can make a pin prick hole half way up the straw if you are worried about them sucking instead of blowing!
Instructions
Mix up your water paint and add a spoon for each colour.
Spoon out a little bit of paint onto your paper, then pick up your straw and BLOW BLOW BLOW!
Watch the paint flow across the paper making all kinds of interesting shapes.
Moving your straw while blowing will make interesting patterns on the paint, and blowing one colour of paint into another is interesting too!
Ask younger kids what they think moving the paint, and what will happen when two colours of paint collide!
Challenge older kids to try and blow the paint in a specific direction and see if they are successful! Or add some drawings with permanent markers and use the blow painting to add features like these fun monster blow paintings!
This fun blow art activity is sure to be a hit with your kids at home, or in the classroom!
More easy painting ideas for kids.
If your kids love painting check out these awesome painting ideas for kids, or try one of these easy art activities:
Another great activity. I’ll give it a try.
I love it, must give it a try!
Loved it! Well, probably even more than 3 y.o. Princess G did, who decided in the end that we would paint with the straws. Will definitely give this, and the bubble painting a go & when I get my big roll of brown paper we will make our wrapping paper with these techniques.
I do the blow painting with my students who have significant disabilities and are unable to blow through a straw – using a hair dryer. I hook the hair dryer up to a switch so one student can run the switch and a peer can run the hair dryer. It makes great tree branches!