The kids recently went to a VBS where they brought home fun rockets. The rockets were basically a film canister and a single Fizzy tablet. Similar to the Alka Seltzer Rockets that are all over Pinterest. The main difference is that the Fizzy’s are colored. This got me thinking that maybe we could use paint instead of water and create our own colorful exploding art.
To make your own Exploding Art your will need:
- Film Canisters- One that has a tight fitting lid. The clear ones were really cool to watch since you could see the paint as it built up pressure before the canister exploded.
- Slightly watered down tempera paint.
- Alka Seltzer tablets
- Large sheet of paper
Make sure you are doing this activity outside. It is messy, but totally worth it.
- Pour about a tablespoon of watered down tempera paint into your film canister.
- Break the Alka Seltzer tablets into half.
- Quickly drop 1/2 a tablet into the paint, tightly put on the lid and give it a quick shake.
- Quickly place paint filled canister lid side down on your paper and stand back.
The film canister will potentially fly 20 feet in the air, so make sure you are in an open area. Most of the paint splatters on the paper. You can see the lid left behind on the paper along with some of the Alka Seltzer tablet. We did reuse the tablets as much as possible with good results. The kids were having to much fun and we needed to get our moneys worth:)
Notice the canister is basically void of paint and most of the main splatter is on the paper with a slight trail leading up.
This project was so much fun! It got 2 thumbs up for everyone at our house. Now I need to find the perfect wall for our beautiful new exploding art work.
Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.
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Tammy
Wow!!! I love this! Man, I have no idea where I can get film canisters :/ Great post
~Aleacia
Thanks so much. This was a really fun way to create art. I love that it is a science lesson too. We had some film canisters saved from years ago, but you can purchase them here http://www.sciencebobstore.com/products/Bulk-Film-Canisters-for-Rockets.html?gclid=CNO84r2V17ECFQed7Qod8QsA5A Hope this helps.
You can go to walmart and they will give you film canisters for free:)
This looks so fun I had to pin it.
This is so awesome and I know my kids would love it! I had the same question as Alecia, I’ll have to check out that site. Thanks for linking with What little boys are made of! I featured it yesterday! Feel free to stop by and grab a button.
This is awesome and beautiful, it’s definitely on the to do list!
I know my son would love this. He loves rockets and really physical art activities. This one is right up his alley; big messy fun. Hmmm now to find some film canisters in Australia…..
I wish I had seen this before my daughter’s art party. We tried to get the same effect by throwing paint/water balloons at a giant canvas. It did not work nearly that well! Great job! I’d love for you to visit my linky party this weekend at at OneCreativeMommy.com.
I’m so glad you linked this up! I love it!
But can I find film canisters? That’s the question.
Thanks for linking up to Science Sunday!
We did this activity this summer at a local park and it was great fun! I asked the photo center at a nearby drugstore if they had any extra film canisters just laying around and they gave me 10 of them for free!
thanks a lot for sharing the idea and advice where to get the canisters!
hey i love your blog and i am really excited to do some of your fun ideas with my little sister!
i was just wondering if you could do some cute and colourful easy DIY for your bedroom! i think it would be really fun and i know that my sister and myself would definatly do them.
thanks great job!!!!
georgia
this looks fun, perhaps a photo shop will have the film canisters, or I was thinking of asking a pharmacy for clear plastic little pill bottles and snapping off the lid..I am going to test it out.
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This looks AWESOME! We will definitely have to give this one a try. Thanks for sharing!
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I called around and eventually found film canisters at a professional photo shop. They recycle them and had a huge bin that we could help ourselves to!
LOVE this idea and can’t wait to try it our at our Art/Science birthday party!
LOVE your fun creative ideas. Thank you so much for taking your precious time to share these with us!
Thanks for your sweet comment. I love that you call around to photo places, great idea! Hope you have a wonderful party.
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I was wanting to do this with my art class and wondering if it would work with acrylic paint instead of tempera?
I have not tried acrylic paint. I would love to hear how it worked for you.
Help I tried this but didn’t have much luck. I watered down the paint. I tried both acrylic and tempra. I tried it with a little paint and more paint. Id tried 1/2 tablet and 1 full tablet. I just don’t know what went wrong. I get a little spatter, but the canister doesn’t really go anywhere, but just falls to the side. WHAT am I doing wrong?
You need to make sure that the canisters lids are tight fitting. We had a few different types, and one typeworked better that the rest. The clear Fuji film canisters (saved from years ago) worked the best for us. Although not sure which brands are better if buying new. Hope that helps.
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this would be great to do with just two colors…im thinkin blackn white…would look good with B/W pics around the exploding artwork!!