Friday, March 12, 2010

Stringing Along - part 2

Two more string painting activities.
Gluing with String

Alright strictly speaking this first one isn't actually painting though it works well if you mix 50% paint with glue.

Simply dip in paint or glue / paint mix and place on paper.

In true Rainbow style, her's is a little minimalist.


  • Adding paint to the glue as described at the start.
  • You can use different types and colours of wool.
  • If you have lots of overlapping pieces of string, you can then fill in the shapes that you make with different collage materials.

String Relief

The first activity wasn't really painting and this next activity isn't actually string - it's noodles. We did this one day after having noodles for lunch. You could use any pasta for different effects. Cook as per normal. Now this part is very important - don't rinse the pasta. You need the starch for it to adhere to the paper. If you want to store the pasta to use later - store it in water, in a food container in the fridge.

This activity starts as for the early one. The drained pasta is laid out on the paper. This is Rainbow's work - a worm.This second one we did together. We used a piece of recycled paper and the dampness of the pasta has caused the ink to run. This isn't part of the effect but just a note of interest.

Once it's dry you paint over the whole page. A dabbing motion on top of the pasta is quite effective. You could try painting inside the shapes formed by the pasta or just randomly.

Once the paint's dry you carefully peel off the pasta.

As you can see beneath the pasta is the white paper. Some of our lines are thick in part as sometimes the pasta would pull of some of the surrounding paint. I'd like to try this again with watercolour paints.


  1. Cool. I've never tried this before. I think my youngest would love this activity!

  2. Yet more lovely projects! The one I saw went like this. Take an empty drink can (tho I guess you could use a glass or tin) and wind lengths of string around the can to make a pattern. Tie the string firmly in place and cover the can in paint so that the string picks up all the colour. Then slowly roll is over a strip of paper - the idea is that the string will print a repeating pattern on the paper. The examples in the book look lovely. If you try it, do let me know!

  3. Hi Zoe, That's a little like your lovely shell roller. I've been meaning to try some of those roller printing. There was some great ones on Sheela's blog
    I also remember at school, drawing on a small piece of card then glueing string on it to form a raised stamp for printing. I'm thinking maybe after Easter we might explore stamping. I think Moonshine could join us for that.