Preschooler Art With Watercolor Masking Fluid

I came across some Watercolor Masking Fluid (aka Rubber Cement) at my stationery store and was quite kicked about it. We painted pages, and pages over a period of few days! So let me take you through the process step by step.

This is bottle! It literally had a piece of paper with the instructions tied up to it with a rubber band! 

Here's the basic process:

(1) Pour out a little amount in a bowl for use, and close the bottle. 

(2) Dip a brush and let your little kiddo "paint" random pictures! Allow it to completely dry. The first time we used it, it was almost bedtime, so we allowed it to dry overnight. 

A caveat about brushes is that once the fluid dries over it, the damage is irreversible. Washing them immediately may not be practical with little children, so its better to keep "designated damaged brushes" for this purpose! Yes, that means the damaged brushes *were* used several times again! Not an issue for painting squiggles and random shapes. 

This is how it looked when dry:

(4) Then paint with watercolor. The pictures were random shapes, and so was the coloring!

 (5) Allow the paint to completely dry

(6) Now for the fun part! Rub the dry masking fluid a little and peel it off!

some peels were nice and long! peels of laughter and overall excitement!

Here's how it looked like, dry and peeled:

Some more peeling:

The collection of dried peeled off masking fluid:

Tried with some poster (tempera) paint too. But the paint was too thick to see thru, couldn't spot the masking fluid! So we could hardly peel anything all all! 

These two are the only ones which turned out okay: 

Concentric Rectangles with Tempera:

Here's how it looked after peeling off all sides of the rectangles:

Concentric Circles with Tempera:

Nice & peeled:

Back to watercolours:

His fave word: "the"

I made some fish, while he peeled some:

Longer the brush strokes and lines, more the fun it is to peel:

Unlike paints, I keep the masking fluid bottle in my cupboard away from his reach! He asks for some every now & then. 

Looking for Non Traditional, Easily Accessible Material for Arts? I have 13 Great Ideas!

Until later! Stay in touch!

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