Roy Creates An Activity Which Blows - Bubble Painting

This week, with so many of Roys friends going back to school and needing to make title pages and book covers and book marks, Roy decided he wanted to share an idea to create beautiful patterned pictures. He has many painting activities which he loves, but one of his favourites is bubble painting. It is quick, easy and, when he was little, was very popular. Today many people seem to have forgotten about bubble painting, but Roy thinks it is perfect for making special book covers. So this week Roy Creates An Activity Which Blows - Bubble Painting.

You Will Need:

• Food colouring or water soluble childrens paint
• Water
• Dishwashing liquid (or bubble bath)
• A plastic straw per person
• Large, shallow containers. Roy used pie dishes, but you could use baking dishes instead.Disposable ones are fine too.
• Paper - blank, white paper is ideal.
• Newspaper or plastic (for protecting the worksurface from spillages!)

Method:

• Cover your workspace with the newspaper or plastic.

• Place the shallow container or containers onto the paper and add a really good squeeze of the dishwashing liquid. Roy used about 2 teaspoons of dishwashing liquid, but you might have a stronger, or weaker one, so adjust the amount to ensure you get good bubbles!

• Add enough water to fill the container to about 2 centimetres deep. You need enough liquid to be able to immerse the straw.

• Add your food colouring. You want a good, strong colour so that when the bubbles pop on the paper it leaves behind the colour. Roy needed about 1 teaspoon but if your container is bigger you might need more.
• Mix the water, food colouring and dishwashing liquid together

• Use a straw to blow bubbles in the colourful, soapy water. Make sure you only blow - you don't want to get a mouth full of soapy water! If you are going this with young children, you can use a pin to make a small hole in the straw a few centimtres from the top, and this will make it harder for them to suck the liquid up.

• When your bubbles are bubbling up above your container, gently press your piece of blank, white paper down against the bubbles. You don't want the paper to touch the water, just the bubbles.
• As the bubbles pop the paper will get colourful, circular patterns.
• You can repeat the process with other colours to get more intricate designs. Roy used blue and red, and when he collected the bubbles from both colours on one piece of paper he had purple patches. He also combined the red and blue liquids to make purple bubbles.
• Let the paper dry and use it for covering books, making cards or wrapping presents!