Art activities using shaving cream and water colors

With young kids around most of the art activities we share are very open ended process based art activities which are easy to put together. Often time the products of these process based art activities turn out to be so beautiful that you are happy that the product is just as great as the process.

Today we are sharing a drip painting on shaving cream art activity.

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• Cut up shapes from cereal boxes
• Shaving cream
• Liquid water colors
• Pipettes

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The only preparation you need for this art project is the cutting part. But that’s optional. All you need is a thick paper or cardboard. I cut out a few shapes from cereal boxes and outlined them with permanent markers.

I set out our shaving cream cans and our favorite liquid water colors with pipettes I had purchased online. Links at the end of the post.

Off we went enjoying some sensory play while smearing shaving cream on cut up card board. You need to have a thick coat of shaving cream on the cardboard so that colors have enough thickness to seep in. This is definitely a fine motor activity. See! fine motor activity rolled into an art project!

Of course my toddler was around trying to keep up with big sis. But this is how a  2.5 year old “gently applies shaving cream”.

This is the same toddler who learned very quickly from big sister and is demonstrating some serious fine motor skills. She is prepping the canvas for some vibrant art activities.

After shaving cream has been applied, there will be some buckling with the cardboard.  Never mind that! Then  the kids “painted” their shaving cream canvas with drops of super vibrant liquid water colors.

Another opportunity to practice fine motor skills : While dropping the water color kids need to have good control over the amount of color dispensed from the  pipette. My older was pretty good at it and let go of the water colors literally drop by drop. Her rationale : “I just do 1 drop for 1 color so I can do many colors and it will be super pretty” Works great for me!

My toddler– not so much with the control. But she was fantastic given her age..She did squirt out the colors on the shaving cream and they looked absolutely brilliant. I cut up a few letters for her to color, paint and smear.

Some more drip drop art activity.

Art activities are a great way to add some intentional learning component. I always try to add bits and pieces. For instance in this art activity  I had initially intended for the kids to explore shapes and color them with the water colors. So I cut out a few geometric shapes along with a few letters.

The hearts looked so adorable

I just loved seeing all the beautiful results of our  colorful shaving cream art activity.

Affiliate links to the products we used

Feel free to pin this image

 With younger kids you can do the same activity with a different focus. Check what Learn Play Imagine did in this fun shaving cream post.

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