Watercolors and Oil

We mixed up a little art and science for a fun project.  The science aspect was to discover what happens when you try to mix oil and water.  The art was created with watercolors.

Reagan and Ellie did this yesterday before school.  They each created two pieces.  For the first pieces, they began by using droppers to drop watercolors on watercolor paper.  Since yesterday was Fat Tuesday, and we were having a day of Mardi Gras fun, they used purple, yellow, and green watercolors (the colors of Mardi Gras).

After dropping the watercolors onto their paper, they added drops of vegetable oil with droppers.

They each wanted to create a second piece, so the second time they began by painting the watercolor paper with the oil and dropping the watercolors on top of the oil.  They seemed to like the results of this better.

After the girls left on the bus, Kate and Collin (he was home sick) sat down to try it.  Kate loves using the droppers!

 Collin only wanted to make one, and he decided to use the method of painting the paper with the oil and then dropping the watercolors on top.

The watercolors run off the paper, so we weren't sure how they would look after they dried, but they came out very cool.  I took this picture this morning after they dried all night.