Invitation to Create on A Canvas with Black Glue – Day 5/31 Days of Invitation to Create Challenge

Day 5/31 days of #toddlerartinvitations

Invitation to create on a canvas with black glue. This black glue is simply made by mixing white PVA glue with black paint. When I saw how much my toddler enjoyed squeezing that bottle of white glue for our Day 2 activity, I decided to come up with an activity for her that centred around the glue but it didn’t really happen the way I imagined.

So I mixed a bit of black paint and white glue together in a squeezy bottle and added some water to thin the mixture so it’d be easier for her to squeeze out squiggly designs onto the canvas (hello again fine motor skills!). That was the original invitation. Unfortunately I watered it down too much and didn’t add enough black paint so instead of a striking black against white background, we got a very dark grey, and instead of it turning out almost like a spider web, the glue kind of pooled together in a giant blob aside from a couple of accidental dots at the top.

Since we didn’t get the spider web effect I thought we’d get, I offered the leftover bits and pieces of the collage invitation from Day 2 to her to see if she wanted to paste anything on the massive blob of greyish paint glue which she did. She even specifically asked for more blue sticks. When she finished pasting, she decided she wanted to squeeze more glue but there was none left, or rather not much left. Nevertheless, she continued squeezing the bottle, squirting out puffs of air and tiny specks of black glue which is how the beautiful speckled effect at the top of the canvas came about.

I had no idea this would be the end result of a simple invitation to create with black glue but I think that’s really the beauty of process art, you never know what you’d get! My toddler had so much fun engaging with this experience this morning and I had so much fun watching her. She’s already asked to do another one but I’ll need to go shop for another canvas first 🙂