Water Color Pictures

The forest model L made yesterday inspired some friends to recreate their own representations of things through water colors. This afternoon L, J, and O worked really hard to recreate some of their favorite things. The brushes they used, however, are specific for water colors! In the picture below you can see the small reservoir filled with water. When squeezed gently, water comes out of the bottom by the brush! They are awesome for fine motor and give the kids some control on how much water they are using. Needless to say, the three kids really liked being able to use them creating their pictures.  

"It's a rainbow! It has red, orange, green, blue, and black!" 

"It's a ghost!" L exclaimed as she spread purple, black, and red across the paper. 

"OoOoo scary!" 

"I'm making a dragon. This is the fire! Rawwwrrrr!!" 

O picked up her paper to show me and noticed something. 

"Hey, it's on here too!"

She noticed that the paint had seeped through the paper onto the other side. 

"There's paint here too. I don't know how it got there."

This then sparked the others to look at the backsides of their papers.

"What?! How is there paint there?"
"I don't like it!" 

Water colors are usually intriguing because of this very scenario. Many kids are confused as to how the colors get on the backside when they only painted on the front. The concept of water soaking through the paper or material and transferring to the other side is kind of hard to explain and can really only be tested. This was an accidental experiment that the kids seemed interested in pursuing. We wondered if there was any other kind of paint that may do this same thing. Stay tuned...