Last night as I was tidying the kitchen before heading off to bed, I came across our silicon mini muffin pan and randomly decided to fill it with water and gel food colouring instead of putting it away (totally normal, right?) Don’t ask how this all came about… An idea came to me, and I just ran with it (I blame jet lag and ridiculously early wake ups – we’re talking 2 or 3 a.m. right now).
Knowing that I wanted to freeze the coloured water so we could use it to paint outside in the desert heat the following day, I placed a sheet of wax paper on top and poked some food picks through to serve as handles, and then it was off to bed. This morning I checked on my frozen coloured pucks, and there they were, rock solid and ready to be used.
Between Miss G and I, we packed a large pad of art paper, our frozen ice paints, a painting smock (food colouring always equals a staining risk), a damp rag, and our water bottles down to our communal courtyard and Grae got painting right away.
Now while most people may not think that an early morning temperature of 44 degrees is all that wonderful, it certainly is when you’re painting with ice. Our coloured ice pucks immediately began to soften up and glided across our paper with ease, leaving beautiful, vibrant trails of watercolour behind them.
As the melting process continued, eventually the food pick handles pulled out all together and Gracen continued painting by holding the frozen pucks with her hands instead.
The very best part of the whole process? Smushing up the little leftover bits of coloured ice and distributing them all over her artwork. Her hands were absolutely filthy, but she thought it was just hilarious and I must admit that the results were pretty beautiful.
Though all of her paintings were wonderfully vibrant and colourful, this is probably my favourite finished piece of the lot. The colours, the lines… I just love it. So much so, that I think we may just have to frame it for her bedroom.
With no end to this heat in sight, I think we may be ice painting on a weekly basis until December rolls around, and that’s okay with me. Because when life gives you desert heat, make ice art. ☺
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Hey pretty family! Your tips, history and details are an inpiration now to my life.
Thx a lot for all that I was reading until now. Let me check the old entries :)
Best regards for all
Do you think this would work with regular food coloring? :)