How to Make Crayon Resist Watercolor Art [Art Project for Kids When You’re Stuck at Home]

Today is our second day in the “Activities For Kids When You’re Stuck at Home” Series.

This craft was inspired by my nieces and nephews. They sent my kids secret messages in the mail — letters that had to be painted over with watercolors before the message was revealed.

I thought this was the perfect project to cover next. What’s fun about this art project is it gives you a good reason to use those white crayons in the crayon box. Another good reason to do this one is you probably have all the materials you need to do it.

What is Resist Art?

Resist art is kind of a funny term that sounds like you’re either resisting art or you’re using is to resist something else (we’re forming a resistance!).

All wordplay aside, resist art is a technique that uses layers of something (in this case watercolors) to expose negative space. In the example we’re doing we’re using white crayons to create the resist. You can also use glue, tape, or grease to create this type of art. If you have other examples, please leave it in the comments below!

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What Do You Need to Make Crayon Resist Water Color Art?

The best thing about this project is you need very few items to do it.

• Watercolor paints (I’m guessing watered down acrylic craft paint would also work fine)
• White Crayons  (Did you know that you can buy a box of white crayons? I did not before now)
• Paper or I recommend watercolor paper
• A paintbrush or a foam brush (I’d say a bigger paintbrush would work better for this project. We used smaller ones and they didn’t work as well)
• Water

That’s it!

Step #1 Draw Something With the Crayon

Using your white crayon, draw something on your watercolor paper. It will work on basic white paper as well, but it works better on watercolor paper. The watercolor paper stands up a little better than the plain paper does.

We chose to draw pictures, but my nieces sent us secret letters. I think this could be a really fun way to pass notes to each other and I imagined my kids hiding them around the house and pretending to be spies.

Step #2 Paint With Watercolors

This is a really easy project because there are really only two steps. The first is to draw something, and the next step is to reveal it with your watercolor paints.

Step #3 Make More Resist Art

There really aren’t any more steps at this point except repeating the process!

Let us know if you do this project. We’d love to hear from you. We’d also love to hear if there’s any projects you’re doing or any projects you’d like us to cover here at the Making Life!

Hope you’re all keeping the cabin fever at bay 🙂