A few weeks ago, we were given a book called “My First Paint Book” from DK publishers (Amazon Affiliate link). One of the projects was to make scratch art with crayons and paint. The boys received some scratch art stickers for Christmas (which they went through quickly), and I knew they would enjoy making their own.

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

For this project you will need:

  • Crayons
  • Poster board
  • Black tempera paint
  • Paintbrushes
  • Toothpicks

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

Step 1: I gave each of the boys a 6″ x 9″ piece of posterboard and instructed them to color the entire thing with crayons. I told them to use a variety of bright colors – yellow, orange, pink, purple, bright blue.

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

It’s important that the entire sheet be covered, but the great part about this project is that there is no wrong way to do it.

DIY Scratch Art with Crayons and Tempera Paint

Step 2: Once the poster board is completely covered with crayon, the next step is to paint over the entire thing with black tempera paint. It definitely will require more than one coat. Here is how ours looked after one coat:

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

I chose to use poster board instead of paper so that it wouldn’t curl with paint on it, but the poster board did curl after the first coat of paint. We did three coats of paint total. All of ours had almost flattened out again by the time we were done painting, and I put them under a few heavy books for a couple of hours to get rid of the remaining curl before we scratched on them.

We let the paint dry overnight before scratching. It seems to take longer to dry being on top of crayon.

Step 3: Use a toothpick to scratch a design or picture!

DIY Scratch Art with Crayons and Tempera Paint

Note 1: The paint does flake a little when you scratch, so this is not a craft that will yield “perfect” results. My boys were not bothered by the flaking paint, however, and really enjoyed each step of the process and especially the scratching part.

Note 2: The paint needs to be the chalky type (tempera). We haven’t tried acrylic, but I doubt that it would work because it is more plastic-y and would probably peel off instead of scratch off.

For Owen (age 3), I taped a toothpick to the end of a paintbrush to give him more to hold on to. He didn’t try to make a picture, but he just loved scratching and revealing the colors underneath! This activity kept him busy for a very long time, and he has been asking if we can make more.

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

Aidan made a Naboo Starfighter and a Millenium Falcon on his:

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

And I went with a space theme for mine: (It’s fun when Mom can get in on the craft!)

DIY Scratch Art with Crayon and Tempera Paint

I think it would be fun to use all yellow and orange crayons, paint over it with blue tempera paint, and scratch some suns and clouds! It would also be fun to make the different planets for an astronomy unit.

If your kids enjoy art projects, check out my “Art for Kids” Pinterest board for more ideas!

3 Comments

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  1. Eddie - The Usual Mayhem Mar 5, 2013

    What a fun idea! Thanks for sharing...adding it to my summer fun list.

    Reply
  2. Joy Oct 29, 2014

    What did you use underneath to catch the crayon and paint that went outside the poster board?

    Reply
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