Rainbows and Scraper Art for Kids

We’ve experimented with scraper painting a few times over the years, using handmade cardboard scrapers, old credit cards (actually just the fake ones you get in the mail sometimes and store loyalty cards), and combs and kitchen tools.

It’s always a fun process!

Daphne, six, tends to make abstract art with the scraper technique while Maia, ten, generally aims to make something realistic.

This time we also made rainbows.

Since I haven’t done a blog post about scraper art before, I thought it was about time.

And especially timely with the rainbows and St. Patrick’s day around the corner.

Here’s a video showing Scraper Art in action! And don’t forget to scroll down to get more detailed step-by-step instructions.

Rainbows and Scraper Art for Kids

MATERIALS

• Sturdy paper or cardstock
• Paint*
• Thin cardboard (to make your own scraper tools**)

*Note about paint :: We used Colorations Activity Paint (including metallic) as well as some BioColors this time, because it’s what we had on hand. We’ve also done this successfully with tempera paint and with acrylic paint. Anything that’s not too watery should work fine.

**Note about scraper art tools :: You can also use old gift cards, store loyalty cards, combs, kitchen tools, spatulas, index cards, and commercially available scraper tools.

INSTRUCTIONS

First, if you don’t already have some scraper art tools, you’ll want to make some out of cardboard. Cereal box cardboard works fine, although I used something a tad thicker in these pictures. Cut the cardboard into rectangular pieces small enough to hold easily in the hand. Keep some with flat edges and add notches along others, so you’ll be able to scrape through the paint in a variety of ways.

Transfer a dollop of paint to your paper. If you have squeeze bottles of paint, simple squeeze a bit directly onto the paper. We used spoons to transfer our Activity Paint to the paper.

Since I always get questions about the mats we use under our art projects, they are called Keep It Clean Plastic Art Mats and come in a set of six from Discount School Supply. They are awesome! You can read more about the tools we use for art here.

Use one of your scrapers to scraper the paint across the surface of the paper. Continue adding paint and scraping as desired, experimenting with different marks and combinations.

We did a lot of abstract scraper art.

Maia made flower after flower with the scraper art technique.

And we all tried our hand at rainbows.

To make the rainbows, we added dots of paint in rainbow order along the bottom half of the paper, then took a larger scraper (piece of cardboard) and gently scraped / pulled the paint into an arc.

 

Maia’s scraper rainbow in progress… We started with lots of abstract scraper art and then decided to try making rainbows. One dot of each paint color along the bottom of the paper, then lightly pull the scraper along in an arc…

A video posted by Jean Van’t Hul | Artful Parent (@jeanvanthul) on Feb 16, 2016 at 1:36pm PST

Here’s a brief video of Maia making a scraper rainbow.

All in all, whether you make rainbows or experiment with other scraper art techniques, I recommend giving this a try with your kids!

More Scraper Art Ideas for Kids

• DIY Scratch Art the Easy Way
• Scrape Painting with Kids (on Art Bar)
• Flower Print + Scrape Painting (on Playful Learning)
• Credit Card Art (on Housing a Forest)
• Rainbow Comb Paintings (on The Imagination Tree)
• Painting with Wheels

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