Gorgeously Groovy Tie Dye Art for Kids

Don’t you absolutely love when something that looks amazingly cool is also amazingly simple to create?  I certainly do.  Don’t get me wrong, we are most often about the ‘process’ over here.  Focusing on the experience of creating.  But I do love pretty things as well.

And this gorgeously groovy tie dye art for kids is the best of both worlds.  Gorgeous when finished and groovy to make (I haven’t had an opportunity to use that word in quite some time.  I wonder if I could bring it back.  Heck, I am so out of the loop it may already be back. That would be groovy…)

I love this tie dye art for many reasons.  One of them is that it is an activity great for kids of many ages.  My little guy who is 4 could (just) manage this art activity, and my daughter who is 12 had a blast with it.  Truthfully I am itching to make one myself.

You will not believe how easy it is to create either.

All you need is oil pastels and an eraser.

We did use pastel paper, but only because we had it.  I double checked this activity on regular paper and it worked almost exactly the same.

To begin, draw a large spiral with a pencil on the piece of paper.  Nice and big loops.

Then, scribble with your pastels on that pencil line.  Think about which colours you would like beside each other, in front of each other, and things like this.  Also have your little ones consider colour choices too.

Different colours make this art work look drastically different.  It would be neat to do this activity to compare warm and cold colours.  Warm being the red through yellow hues, and cold being the purple, blue, and green hues.

I bet you could even manage one of these for each season … might be a neat project to try (if you do, please send me a picture!)

Gosh I got a bit ahead of myself there, apparently the bright colours in this post are throwing me off my game.  Or perhaps it is the wine I am enjoying — ’tis the season (bedtime season …)

Meanwhile, back at the art project:

As you are scribbling your pastels all around the pencil line, leave a little bit of white paper in between the rings.  This will help with the blending and blurring of this art project.

You need to push rather hard with the pastels, to get a nice deep colour.

Once you are satisfied with your colours, take a white eraser (I assume any eraser would work, but we have only done it with the soft white ones) and smudge the pastels.  Start at the center and pull the eraser down to the edge of the paper – pushing quite hard.

Repeat, always working from the center to the outside, the entire way around the paper.

And that is it!  Really simple, but very beautiful too.  A perfect art activity to bring out the little hippie in you and yours.

These are so bright and cheery we might just be making them all winter long.  It’s a nice fun way to add a little cheeriness to a gray winter day.

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