Water & Ink Paintings

This morning as we skimmed through Facebook we found this great video of an ink on water process that makes the most magical paintings. I showed the video to my son and he was amazed. He wanted to know "how do they do that?!" So we made our own version. It's a little more kid friendly (if you've ever worked with ink you'll understand) and we used materials that you probably already have around the house.

Here are the directions...

INK AND WATER PAINTINGS

gather

: watercolor paper or heavy weight paper

: paint brush with a fine point

: cup of water

: markers (or liquid watercolor with an eye dropper)

: pen 

make

: Using the back end of your pen emboss an image onto your picture. You can use anything pointy to do this as long as it doesn't poke holes in the paper or leave marks. You are essentially making a well for the water to rest in, so that it doesn't run all over the paper. 

: Take the fine point paint brush and dip it in the water, then slowly trace your image. The water should form a long bubble along the lines where you embossed. 

: Gently take your marker and dip it in the water on the paper. (Note - this will probably drain the ink from your markers and leave them with a white tip - you can drop the markers in the water cup afterwards to turn them into liquid watercolor). 

: Let the painting dry and you're finished. 

ask

: Why does the water turn colors when you put the ink in?

: Why do you think all of the water changes color and not just the spot where you dropped the ink?

: Is this really magic??