5 Easy Art Projects: Folded Paper Marker Drawings

Welcome to the first day of 5 days in a row of easy art projects for kids! I’m so excited, because easy art projects are my favorites.

There’s always a place and benefit for longer, more involved projects, but I tend to have no attention span like many children, so I can understand the appeal of easy art projects.

Today we’ve got some really cool marker “drawings”. I posted this beautiful piece of artwork on Facebook a little while back, and asked what you all thought it was made from.

Some thought paint, some thought markers, so I decided to try my hand at using marker. Fen and I folded up a bunch of pieces of paper and experimented with how to hold the markers, whether the paper should be folded or open, etc.

Materials:

Permanent markers
White printer paper

Fold your paper really any way you want to get good lines and intersections with the creases. We folded ours in half lengthwise twice (so you have 3 creases going lengthwise). Then we did the same thing width-wise, and folded it diagonally for lots of intersection points.

For wherever you want marker dots, fold up the paper into a point, place the point down on a surface, and press the side of the marker tip onto the paper point. Hang out for a while and watch the color bleed until it’s as big as you want it.

Continue with this until all of the dots are made! Easy peasy, right? Easy art projects are lovely.

See all 5 of the easy projects:

Day 1: Folded Paper Marker Drawings

Day 2: Inky Chalk Pastel Drawings

Day 3: Spray Paint T-shirts

Day 4: Smiley Face Paintings

Day 5: Cardboard Prints

Day 2

It’s day 2 of easy art projects, (day 1 is Dotty Marker Drawings) and today we’ve got chalk pastel drawings on ink-covered paper. I know that’s a mouthful, but it couldn’t be easier.

You can do this project with any age, the only difference being how much you are involved (which is usually the case when you modify art projects, right?)

Materials:

Watercolor paper (not too textured- alternatively, use bristol)
India ink (alternatively, use black, non-washable tempera.)
Sponge brush
Chalk pastels (alternatively, use chalk, but the pastels look much more vibrant.)

Directions:

Using your sponge brush, cover the watercolor paper with black india ink. Black tempera paint works well, too, but only if it’s the non-washable paint. We left a loose white ‘frame’ unpainted around the paper. The Amazon link at the bottom of the post is for watercolor paper that is rough on one side and smooth on the other, for different types of projects! I love products that do double duty.

Let the paper dry and draw on it! For the littles, they can draw whatever their hearts desire. Just the act of drawing on a new surface, with a new medium is great exploration for them.

For the big kids, ket them draw whatever they want, or make some cool color/warm color dots: have them pick two cool colors and two warm colors and combine them into dots- (one on the outside of the dot and one inside.)

How moderne!

See all 5 of the Easy Art Projects: