Getting Artistic

Getting Artistic 
  Art fires the imagination and sharpens the brain. Is your child artistically inclined? Here are seven creative outlets that will keep your kids busy and gainfully occupied for a few hours a day - one for each day of the week! 
 
Monday
Marbling
Fill a flat pan big enough to dip a sheet of paper in, with water. 
Mix oil paints with a little kerosene, and pour a few drops of different colours into the water. Swirl the water around. Dip a sheet of paper in it, and remove. You will get a lovely pattern on the paper.  
This technique is known as marbling, as the finished product resembles a slab of marble. 
 
Tuesday
Bottle painting
Wash an old bottle well, and let it dry. Once dried, paint a scenery or any design on it. You could also fill it up a few large blobs of
different coloured oil paints mixed with kerosene. Add some water and shake it around, to produce the marble-like effect as seen above. Pour out the water, and leave it to dry overnight. The next day, call your electrician and ask him to have it fitted with a bulb. Get it fitted with a little lampshade, and you have an excellent lamp for the kids' room! 
 
Wednesday
Paper Cutting
Take a coloured sheet of paper. If you want, you could even use a sheet of marbled paper. Fold it in quarter. Cut out fine lines, circles and triangles in them. You could get wonderful lace-like designs. Experiment! You and your child will get the hang of it pretty soon. 
 
Thursday
Candle colouring
Take a candle and rub it over a sheet of paper. Make a rough drawing with the candle: a house, flower, birds, mountain.. Using light strokes with different colour pencils or with watercolours, shade the entire sheet of paper. Watch the candle-sketch emerge! Alternatively, light a candle and let the wax drip onto your paper, forming dots, lines or any other design. When the wax has hardened, paint over the sheet with
water paints. After the paint dries, peel out the wax. Wax, as you
know is waterproof. Thus, the area that had been covered with wax will still be white (or the colour of the paper).
 
Friday
Spray Painting
Here's an alternative to the traditional spray painting method. Flip through an old magazine or colouring book, and cut out shapes of animals or flowers. Place these shapes on a sheet of paper. Dip a toothbrush in a watercolour or poster paint, and spray it over the sheet. You don't need to use your hands on the bristles. Use an old comb instead, to create the sprays. After you're done, remove the cut-outs. You could also move the cut-outs around and continue spraying, to get different shades.
 
Saturday
Block printing
Block printing are designs made from a stamp, which are repeated again and again, in a regular pattern. You could do this with the help of a potato. Yes, a potato makes an excellent block. Cut a potato in half. 
Cut out the potato so that it forms the stamp of a flower. Dip the potato in paint and stamp it neatly on a clean sheet of paper. Repeat the stamp right next to it, to form a row of flowers. Do this for the entire page. If you want, you could alternate two blocks. 
 
Sunday
Square paper colouring
Purchase a square ruled book from your neighbourhood stationary shop. 
Take a set of 9 squares, and with a colour pencil, colour them all different colours, leaving the center square blank. Continue with this pattern throughout the page, using the same colours at the same intervals.