Art Teacher in Disguise

Most of you know this, but in my former (and hopefully future) life I was an art teacher. I haven't gotten too many chances recently to flex my art teacher muscles, but with the arrival of summer camp comes the opportunity to work in a few craft projects a week. I don't have a budget, so I've been trying to find some interesting projects to do with ordinary things we have hanging around and today's was such a success that I had to share!

I found this project in a book to make paint like the old masters would have done. Kind of haha. All you have to do is take some sidewalk chalk, crush it up into powder then add a mixture of egg yolks and water. It made such beautiful and vibrant colors! and even though it took a lot of prep work to crush up all that chalk, I think the kids really loved mixing it up themselves and learning something that they can do at home. I would definitely recommend this to people who teach kids of all ages, and even parents looking for a cool craft project to do at home. The consistency of the paint was very close to watercolors and didn't smell like eggs even though the kids claimed that it would.

Here are some shots of my little painters in action:

My cheap (free) supplies:

mmm egg yolks with a little bit of water

crushing this would have been WAY easier with a coffee grinder

 and here are my favorite final products:

Love is perfect :) how precious

Since my "grinding" technique included chopping the chalk with a knife and then trying to smooth it out with a metal spoon in a cereal bowl, the final result was relatively gritty. I kind of like the texture that it added, but if I ever do this again I will find a way to not have to do all that by hand. Let me know if you try this at home!

Also, I mentioned last week that I did a guest post for my friend Chelsey and a few people let me know that the photos weren't working. Well... we did a little editing, and I just wanted to let you know that the photos are definitely up and running now. If you didn't see it then, you should check it out now! Head here to read my baby product reviews for their new little bundle of joy :)