Watercolor Sharpie Art

Who knew that you could make a fun watercolor affect with a sharpie? We decided to give it a shot.

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Watercolor Sharpie Art

I have three young children so the idea of using sharpies was a little intimidating at first. However, I decided to just go for it and took the kids outside. This way at least if they started to draw on anything besides the canvas it was only grass.

Sharpie Art Supplies

Colorful sharpies
Canvas, we used stars
Rubbing alcohol
Liquid dropper, we used an old medicine syringe
Cookie Sheet

I found a pack of brightly colored sharpies and some canvas stars from the dollar store. We took these outside and got to work. The kids actually did really well with only coloring on the stars, and not their hands/arms. We tried to color as much of the stars as possible and really utilize all the bright colors.

Once we had the stars colored, the kids got a little sidetracked because once we are outside it is impossible to get them back inside. So, we played outside awhile, I think the sharpie would have blended better if we finished them immediately, but it still turned out ok.

After we were finally back in the house it was time to add the rubbing alcohol to the stars.

Making the Sharpie Watercolor Effect

I got out our biggest cookie sheet and placed the stars on that. This was to try to contain any excess alcohol because kids have no idea when enough is enough. It’s an all or nothing thing.

Then I filled an old medicine syringe with rubbing alcohol and let each child apply the rubbing alcohol to their stars. We were trying to do this one drop at a time, but it didn’t exactly go that way. This was when it started to get that watercolor affect.

Once they had their stars completely covered in rubbing alcohol, they didn’t want to stop, because who only does something once?!? So, we colored some plates as well. I didn’t use sharpies at that point, but the kids didn’t care. They had fun none the less.

While we were working on the plates, the stars had a chance to dry. As they dried, they really took on the watercolor affect. As I said before, we let the stars dry while we played outside, or they probably would have worked better.

That is all it that it took. This is a super easy activity for the kids and great practice for fine motor skills with markers, sharpies, and syringes.