Spider Web Glue-Relief Painting

Now that Big Brother is in full day kindergarten most of our activities are ones we can do after school or on the weekend. I was inspired by this Fall Leaf Watercolor Resist Art from Fun at Home with Kids to create a different fall art idea: Spider Web Glue-Relief Painting.

We spread the art process over two after school days, this worked well for the type of glue we were using. It also worked well with our new after school routines. 

Materials: 

White/Clear craft glue (we used Elmer's clear school glue) 

White paper

Pencil (optional) 

Watercolor paints

A few months ago we learned about "orb" spiderwebs so we decided to create orb webs for this painting activity. We used the clear glue to create spider web lines on the paper. (We thought about drawing it in pencil first, but decided to just use the glue freely.)

To create an orb web we first drew a large circle with a smaller circle inside of it, and another even smaller circle inside that one. We then made glue lines diagonally across the entire picture. When we were done with the glue we set the papers aside and let the glue dry thoroughly. 

When the glue was fully dried (for us this meant we came back to it several days later) it was hard and raised off of the paper. We got out our watercolors and paintbrushes and began the second step of our project. Rather than fill in between the glued lines, we painted right over the lines. The paint did stick to the glue, but became glossy. 

Big Brother experimented with using different colors on his spider web. As the paint dried, the lines showed up even more clearly. 

Each finished spiderweb looked a little different, but that was a neat way to experiment with how different this process art could be. 

Now that we've experimented once with this type of process art we'll definitely be trying it again with other themes!

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