Paint on Sandpaper

This was a fun and easy activity we did a few weeks ago for "Desert Week." I will admit that Big Brother chose Desert Week and I was a little stumped on what to do for the week. We came up with several fun ideas. When this idea came to me and proved to be both easy and fun - painting on sandpaper.

We used this idea for "Desert Week" but I could see you this also as a great activity as a "beach" project. 

Materials: 

The materials are simple- watercolors, water, fine sandpaper, and paintbrushes. We did discover a slightly better quality paintbrush works a little better. 

The boys each started adding colors to their sandpaper. We did pretty quickly discover that it was better to move the brush in only one direction at a time and not back and forth. 

While the two littler guys primarily explored just adding paint to their pictures, Big Brother worked on trying to create a dessert scene. He used some of the books we'd been reading for inspiration. 

I loved how the watercolor looked on the paper, it reminded me of sand paintings you might see in a desert cave - so I couldn't resist trying my hand at a desert painting too. 

We'll definitely be exploring this medium some more, looking for other ideas for our paintings. 

This post may also have been shared at some of these terrific link parties.