Parent-child scratch art painting – let the kids have a blast for an afternoon

Since New Year’s Day this year, I’ve seen some moms using their memories of New Year’s fireworks to create DIY scratch art paper with their kids, letting them paint the fireworks as they see them. As a mom who loves to shop, I’ve always had scratch art paper at home, but it was store-bought. When I saw that you could make it yourself, I thought it was amazing—I definitely had to give it a try Up!(But I ended up putting it off until now~lol)

1. Watercolor brushes and a cup tube (grill brush or small paintbrush will also work)
2. Crayons (I used two different types of crayons for the experiment—Amos crayons and soybean crayons)
3. Black acrylic paint
4. Dishwashing liquid
5. White SIC paper
6. Bamboo skewers for grilling (or anything similar with a pointy tip, such as a fruit fork)

Let’s get started crafting!

1. Use crayons to freely draw your own colors on the white SIC paper (try using a variety of colors for a richer effect).
A helpful reminder: if the crayon color isn’t very vivid, press harder when coloring so that the final scratch art will have clear colors.

Nana used Amos crayons (they show up very clearly even with light strokes), while mommy used soybean crayons (you need to press harder, but the color shows up decently)

After drawing, try not to leave any white spaces—fill in all the gaps (mommy uncreatively drew a rainbow, while Nana just went wild with random doodles).

2. Once the crayon drawing is complete, mix black acrylic paint with a bit of water and a small spoonful of dishwashing liquid (I just eyeballed the amounts).
A helpful reminder: don’t forget to add the dishwashing liquid—at first, I forgot, and as a result, Nana’s black paint covered the Amos crayon marks just fine, but my soybean crayon marks wouldn’t cover no matter what. Later, after adding dishwashing liquid to the paint, it worked perfectly Up!Also, scratch art made with dishwashing liquid added is much easier to scratch.

Nana originally used a watercolor brush, but then she wanted to use a paintbrush. Lol!A helpful reminder: when brushing on the black acrylic paint, just apply one coat to cover the crayon—try not to go over it multiple times, or else you’ll need to scratch really hard when creating the art.

Once the entire SIC paper is painted, let it dry (I left mine overnight).

Ta-da~ once the paint is dry, your scratch art paper is ready Up!Grab your sharp tool and start being an artist!Nana used the bamboo stick that came with her scratch art book, later tried a fruit fork, but in the end still found the bamboo stick the best.

This is a photo Nana took for me—this girl’s photography skills are getting better and better, but make sure to use the phone, not her camera.

Nana’s scratch art creation—a spider and its web (that’s what Nana said). Since quite some time has passed since New Year’s and Double Ten fireworks, I felt the hype had died down, so I didn’t set a theme—just went with the flow Up!

Mommy’s filial daughter creation—Peppa Pig (please ignore the big smiley face in the middle, because this scratch art paper was swapped with me by Nana halfway through)

Scratch art paper gives kids a unique painting experience and a sense of novelty, but buying ready-made scratch art paper is more cost- and time-effective (though just two B4-sized sheets used up a third of a can of black acrylic paint—maybe my brush was too big too). But personally, I prefer making “DIY scratch art paper” with my child and then letting her enjoy the whole process. Dragging out the kid’s time, hehe!

Further reading: