art with children / crafting with children / HOMESCHOOLING

Searching for whales

whale printing 5

Strange as it may sound, I've had whales on the brain for the last several months. I can't remember where it started, really.

I know I had this idea to start making whale shaped chalkboards, but that still hasn't panned out. Then I thought about carving whale shaped stamps, but that hasn't happened yet either. So when I stumbled across this book
on making hand-print animal art and happened to turn to the whale page first, it pretty much seemed like a sign to me. Don't you think?

The girls and I made some prints on paper this winter but after going to a printing/textile workshop at the BMA this weekend, I was inspired to get the girls to do a little whale printing on some kitchen towels for me today. Sort of like poor man's screen printing.

The book is filled with some amazing instructions for making animals using all kinds of handprint techniques–only stamping certain fingers, just your palm, printing with your fist. Things I'd never even thought of.

But making the whale is pretty straightforward.

whale printing 1

To start, stamp (or in this case we painted with a brush) your hand and fingers only. Not your thumb. (if you want more of a handprint look, don't let your children coat their entire hands and palm in paint. The girls coated their hands for these whales, which makes them much more filled in.)

whale printing 2

After you have printed your hand on the paper, use your pointer finger to make the fin and tail.

whale printing 3

Once the girls prints dried, I used a sharpie marker to outline the whale body and add an eye. Because Mary's was so dark, I used the end of the paintbrush to paint on the eye.

whale printing 4

All in all, an extremely successful, easy project. And I have a little whale in my life made from my favorite little hands. The perfect combination.

whale printing 5

Strange as it may sound, I've had whales on the brain for the last several months. I can't remember where it started, really.

I know I had this idea to start making whale shaped chalkboards, but that still hasn't panned out. Then I thought about carving whale shaped stamps, but that hasn't happened yet either. So when I stumbled across this book
on making hand-print animal art and happened to turn to the whale page first, it pretty much seemed like a sign to me. Don't you think?

The girls and I made some prints on paper this winter but after going to a printing/textile workshop at the BMA this weekend, I was inspired to get the girls to do a little whale printing on some kitchen towels for me today. Sort of like poor man's screen printing.

The book is filled with some amazing instructions for making animals using all kinds of handprint techniques–only stamping certain fingers, just your palm, printing with your fist. Things I'd never even thought of.

But making the whale is pretty straightforward.

whale printing 1

To start, stamp (or in this case we painted with a brush) your hand and fingers only. Not your thumb. (if you want more of a handprint look, don't let your children coat their entire hands and palm in paint. The girls coated their hands for these whales, which makes them much more filled in.)

whale printing 2

After you have printed your hand on the paper, use your pointer finger to make the fin and tail.

whale printing 3

Once the girls prints dried, I used a sharpie marker to outline the whale body and add an eye. Because Mary's was so dark, I used the end of the paintbrush to paint on the eye.

whale printing 4

All in all, an extremely successful, easy project. And I have a little whale in my life made from my favorite little hands. The perfect combination.

18 comments on “Searching for whales”

  1. I love it!! So cute. I’d love to see a little baby whale from elizabeth’s hands!! 🙂 But then we might see little whales all over the house!!!

  2. So cute!!! I saw some hand print elephants today too, and I SO want to make tshirts now. This sealed the deal. There will be a series of handprint clothing and accessories at my house! 🙂

  3. Those are fantastic! And the book looks great as well.

    Incidentially, we are going whale watching this weekend off the West Coast of Scotland. This would be a great activity as a warm up to get my son thinking about whales (and not thinking about dinosaurs for maybe 2 minutes?? Maybe?).

  4. I really like that idea…maybe my library will have that book. The last time we did handprints was several years ago and my tiny one made lily pads with the side of his closed fist (pretty hard to get an infant to open his hands so it was perfect!)

  5. These are so great! Elise has been asking about whales a lot lately. We’re going to the National Aquarium this summer, and we told her it was a big aquarium. So she assumes it is big enough for whales. 🙂 “Not even a baby whale??”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.