Turn old, dried up markers, into bright, vibrant, marker paint in a few easy steps!
This simple technique to make paint from old markers will have you saving all those dried up old markers and bringing them back to life so they can make even more art!
Don’t throw them out!!!
You can turn them into awesome marker paint!
How to Make Paint with Markers
Making paint from old markers is super simple, and a fun process that the kids can be involved in.
All you need is some containers that hold water, a safe place to put them, and some old, dried up, water-based markers.
Separate the old markers into colours and put markers of each colour into a container, add some water and let them sit for 24 hours.
Put a few of each colour marker in each container, and leave them to soak for at least a few days.
The size of the containers you’ll need will depend on how many old markers you have. We only had a couple of markers of each colour to make this batch so I used the bottom of our icy-pole (popsicle) maker, putting each coloured marker into a different section and adding a little water.
The amount of water you need to add will also depend on the amount of markers, and how bight you want the colour to be. If you have lots of markers, add more water, if you only have a few just add enough water to cover the tips of the markers.
After around 24 hours you’ll have marker paint, but the longer you leave the markers the more vibrant the colours will become. After leaving the markers for a week we had quite bright, concentrated paint that we could dilute with water if we wanted.
The resulting marker paint is a lot like liquid watercolour paint or water based dye and can be used in lots of fun ways.
We used our paint to do some simple cotton bud painting. The colours came out nice and bright and the small amount of paint went a long way!
So don’t throw out your old dried up markers, they still have a lot of creating left in them!
Once you’ve made some marker paint you might like to try it out on one of these fun art projects:
Excellent idea! The paintings look great – they seem bright to me! Thanks for sharing!
What a clever idea! I am definitely giving this a go!
what a great idea – a perfect use for imperfect markers.
x
I love the idea. I was about to sort through our textas – we may be doing this one on the weekend!
Now I just have to wait for some of our markers to run out!
Try sprinkling baking soda on wet hands and rubbing to get food coloring or liquid watercolor out of skin. Follow it with soap and water. It does a better job than soap alone. This looks like fun. Does it matter whether the markers are washable or not?
Oh thanks for the backing soda tip! I always have stained fingers! LOL
I’m not sure if they need to be washable but I’d think the markers need to be water based or it won’t work.
Brilliant! I revive my old markers this way but never thought to use the colored water. I just love it!!
Thanks for sharing this. I run a large daycare and use markers all the time so I have a lot that dry up and I throw away. I can’t wait to try this idea. I’m going to “like” your fan page on Facebook so I can follow all your great ideas!
And, of course, we just threw out a heap of markers at the start of last week, d’oh!
Will remember this for next time :)
thanks so much for these great tips! Bloggers are such great people for fab ideas and tips!
Wow, that is a great way to use dying markers. I love the finished results. The colors are SO vibrant. Thanks for sharing!
What a fabulous way to get a bit more life out of your pens! We currently have few felt tip pens…. but as our collections grow I will be sure to know what to do with the old ones!
Maggy
This is fabulous Kate! Pinning and will give this a shot with all our lidless markers!