I was pretty excited to lead my grade 2 class in a messy spray-bottle edicol dye experience the other day in art. Worked really well with the pre primary and grade 1s at another school. The idea was to get squares of canvas, make masking tape ‘pictures’ and then spray the canvas with brightly coloured edicol dye. Rip the masking tape off, and wallah…masking-tape-resist prints. Easy. Unfortunately though, having anticipated a repeat experience with the yer 1s and 2s, I found I was sadly short of the canvas I had been using. Oh well, there’s heaps of donated fabric in my art room, so I decided to use it instead. This fabric was heavy, but somewhat soft and furry, so when the grade 2s excitedly removed their masking tape, all the dye bled through creating psychedelic blobs of colour on material. 😦  Needless to say, I aborted the plan to do the same thing with year 1s (sigh).

Next week we had a go at salvaging our psychedelic muck ups by getting them to do black fruit prints over them. I actually loved the process of doing this. There’s something old school about using fruit and veg to print with, reminds me of when I was in kindy (well I don’t remember actually doing fruit prints, but I have a kindergarten association with them nonetheless). Whilst the finished product is a bit ‘meh’, it made me realise how very important the art process is, not the finished product. I now have a whole saga of edicol dye Meanderings to act as catalysts for conversations about texture, colour and focal point with the kids.