Painting for kids

Make Rainbows with Scraper Art for Kids

February 4, 2022

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Scraper art is a fun process art activity for kids and can be used to create a variety of textures and looks, including scraper art rainbows.

Updated April 2022

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!

Kids either tend to make abstract art with the scraper technique or something realistic.

This time we made rainbows.

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

Making Rainbows with Scraper Art

MATERIALS

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

*Note about paint: We have used tempera, acrylics and BioColors for this activity and all work well. 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

Make your scraper tools
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 we 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.
Add paint to paper
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 paint to the paper.
Scrape!
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.

You can try your hand at abstract scraper art. Or making something specific like these flowers with the scraper art technique.

Or you can use the scraper technique to make 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.