Drip Drop Paintings

We are experiencing the third year of a drought in our area so we are hoping to see some wet weather soon. We found this fantastic idea on a blog for the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art where they have many other great art activities for children of all ages. We love this activity because children of all ages will enjoy participating and it is relaxing. We would pair this activity with the book, "Come On, Rain" by Karen Hesse since it's hot and dry here and a great deal like the story line in the book where we are pleading for rain.

You will need:
pipettes or eye droppers
small cups or containers
paint (liquid watercolor or diluted tempera paint)
paper (we used white construction and watercolor paper)
an easel, book stand or a long piece of cardboard folded into a right triangle
tray and paper towels to catch paint drips

We used diluted tempera paint for this project, adding a small amount of water until it was runny enough to use with the pipettes.
Place paper on your easel with a tray and paper towel underneath. Provide diluted paint in small cups. We had enough space to offer 4 colors.

The colors will mix as they drip. We didn't have green paint but when the yellow and blue paint fell along the same line they mixed into green on their way down.

You will notice that younger children will produce drips which have a wider spread. This is because they have less control over grading their fine motor movements. So when they squeeze the paint out of the dropper, they squeeze it all at once rather than pressing slowly and regulating the paint flow. This activity is great practice for young children to strengthen their fine motor skills, which they will need for writing.