Five Things to Paint with Watercolors, OTHER than Paper

salt dough, play dough, or cornstarch dough, wet or dry

I didn't get a picture of Sydney's finished work, mostly because by then we were deep in the process of all things watercolor, but every homemade kind of dough that I've ever worked with has taken watercolor like a champ, and doesn't seem to get wet or sticky as a result.

popsicle sticks

The watercolor ends up looking like a vibrant wood stain with these. As a matter of fact, watching the girls paint these, and seeing how vivid the colors stayed, I was left with an idea for an upcoming project... Stay tuned!

coffee filters

And nope, you don't have to cut them into novelty shapes first! The fun with these is watching the colors bleed and blend, which is why it's so great to use an eyedropper--you can drip and observe, drip and observe...very contemplative.

unfinished wood of all sorts

We have a grab bag of random wood objects that we're ever so often painting, in preparation for a gigantic and ridiculous free-form sculpture project that I'll introduce at some point in the future, but any unfinished wood, such as tree branches with the bark peeled off, or lumber scraps, is very fun to paint and takes the paint well. Again, the paint will bleed at the edges, so I haven't found watercolor good for detail work on wood, but it's great for abstracts.

ice

Eyedroppers are the tool of choice here, as well. Now that the weather is cool I put whatever ice the girls want to paint and sprinkle salt on in an aluminum baking pan on the table inside--when they're done or the ice has completely melted, it's easy to pour out into the sink and then rinse for re-use.

We happen to use these liquid watercolors, and we're lavish with them--no watering down for us! However, you can use whatever watercolor floats your boat, and it's not going to bother me. I'm going to be too busy working on my secret liquid watercolor and wood project to complain.