Salad Spinner Painitng

Another quick and not-so-dirty art project using one of O-man's favorite toys - the SALAD SPINNER! He likes to fill it with cars, spin it, and listen to them rattle around.

This is a good project to experiment with color mixing, and the final product is a great jumping off point for many other projects.

The best thing about this is that the mess is contained WITHIN the salad spinner. YES!

MATERIALS:
-Salad spinner
-Coffee filters (or any paper that will fit in your salad spinner)
-Paint (We used liquid watercolors again.)
-Table covering (for drying area)
-Arm muscles!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place a coffee filter in the basket of the salad spinner.

Add drops/squirts of paint on top. We used 2-4 colors. The liquid watercolors soak into the coffee filter pretty quickly, so you want to drop them in and start spinning. The more paint you add, the more liquid, the longer it takes to soak in, the more it will spin out - you get the idea.

And SPIN! With my little guy, I would often give it a good first spin to get the paint moving and then let him spin it as long as he wanted to.

Open it up and see your creation.

For this project, you definitely want a protected place for the coffee filters to dry since the paint will soak completely through. We put newspaper down on the dining table for a drying area.

ALTERNATIVES:
I love the vibrancy of the liquid watercolors for this project. But you could use tempera or other paints - just make sure they are thinned out enough to move with the centrifugal force of the salad spinner. You can also use typing paper or card stock cut down to fit in the salad spinner (circles or squares).  With thicker paint and thicker paper, you might see more of the spinner effect because the paint will sit up on top of the paper. You could also try adding glitter glue if you are into sparkles.

AFTER CREATION:
Again this is simple a beautiful process art project, but if you want to do something with it:
-use it for collage or art journaling
-scrunch it in the middle and use pipe cleaners or a clothes pin to create a butterfly and/or a flower
-add a few cotton balls in the middle, fold over and tie it with string (ghost style). Let your little one practice cutting the edges of the coffee filter into strips (from the edge to the string) to create a jellyfish or an octopus.
-cover with contact paper or laminate sheet, punch hole and hang it in the window as a sun catcher.