Wet Chalk Drawings

Chalk is a fun and inexpensive medium to draw with.  My kids love decorating our sidewalks with beautiful drawings and colorful games.  They can spend hours outside creating, and love when it rains and cleans their “canvas” so that they can start all over creating new ideas and drawings.  Since we always have an abundance of chalk, we decided to create simple Wet Chalk Drawings.  Nothing to fancy, but so easy to do.

Since the set up of this activity is minimal, it is perfect for those days when you just need something extra to do!  No prep work, and I always have chalk and paper on hand:)

Materials:

• Chalk ~ we like to use are chunky sidewalk chalk
• Black paper
• Glass 1/2 full of water

Simple place the chalk into the glass of water for a few moments and you are ready to begin creating.

I love the GIANT roll of black paper that a friend blessed us with.  You can do this with any size of paper.   Small sheets of construction paper work great.  However, there is something magical about creating on a huge piece of paper.

You can also have the kids experiment with both wet chalk and dry chalk to see which they like coloring and drawing with.

They will probably find that by adding water, the texture of the chalk changes.  It becomes more smooth and easier to glide across the paper.  The texture becomes almost paint like.  I love how vibrant the colors become, especially on the black paper.

If you want to make the colors even brighter, experiment with dissolving a little sugar into the water.

Be careful (especially if you are using the skinny chalk) since when the chalk is wet, it is more fragile and will snap if you add too much pressure.

When you are done creating just leave the chalk out to dry.  It will go back to normal once it is dry.

If you are worried about the drawing smudging you can give it a quick spray with hair spray to set it.  Hairspray works great on dry chalk drawing too:)

You can also try this fun technique outside on the side walk.  Bring a glass of water with you, or play with chalk in the rain.  You might be surprised at how your drawings turn out:)

My kids also love using chalk to temporarily color their hair.  Here is a simple tutorial on how to Chalk Hair.  It is a simple technique that is inexpensive and washes out easily!

What is your favorite way to play with chalk?