Post by MJ of Pars Caeli

Hi friends, This is MJ of Pars Caeli, back with a fun project to make the most of the warmer weather! I’m not always the best at embracing the messes that our projects bring with them, but when I take those projects outside in the beautiful weather? I’m game.

Summer is such a great time to create together–away from normal schedules, in the warmer weather. We decided to take watercolors to a new level by adding them to spray bottles. Painting with spray is a fun and easy way to discover color mixing, use nature as a form of resist, and create spontaneous magic you never expected.

We used some inexpensive tubes of watercolor and squirted about a quarter-sized blob into each spray bottle. I added only half a bottle of water in order to keep the color saturated. More water will give a pastel, faded effect and less water will give an intense, colorful look. Use watercolor paper to make the most of the project. It can absorb the heavy load of water with beautiful results. We mounted ours to cookie sheets with some washi tape and laid them in the grass.

Take a look around you and discover what you can use to create an interesting composition. My children used a lot of what we have in our backyard – leaves, grass, sticks – with really interesting results. Some of the elements absorbed the colors and others resisted.

When you’re ready to paint, spray the bottles straight down on to your page to make sure you don’t move any of the objects with the wind of the spray! You’ll get the feel for your sprayer to see that full blast sprays produce muted blocks of color and the slow drips add drama.

This method would work really well with the very small travel spray bottles (like the one used for hairspray) to do smaller works.

Toss handfuls of grass and get these cool, interlacing lines.

Add patterns of leaves for a really interesting abstract work of art!

You can find more projects over on The Summer Explorers! Have fun with the very washable version of spray paint! Your children will be surprised by the instant artists they become!

Xoxo, MJ

MJ is a graphic and product designer, wife, and proud momma to three. She founded Pars Caeli (meaning a piece of heaven), a delightful blog and shop, to add more creative to the everyday. MJ worked with our team to bring her lunchbox jokes to life in our product Lunchtime LOL Notes, now available at The Land of Nod to bring on a case of the giggles!