Swing Cup Painting

Swing Cup Painting

Our first Make It Monday was a success! One of our favorite You Tube channels is Dude Perfect ~ 5 guys who do trick shots, impersonations, crafts, games, etc. all in a family friendly, Christian atmosphere. No worries about inappropriate language or topics – a rarity for You Tube! Anyways, they did a craft segment where they poked a hole in the bottom of a pant can and swung it from a rope over a large canvas. The result was a very cool design that was completely determined by the momentum of the swinging rope and where the paint can went. So, I decided to try and replicate that craft session on a much much smaller scale. This is what I did, but of course you can modify based on the size of your painting area. We had to do this craft in the basement due to weather.

First, tape plastic garbage bags on the floor of your art space. *Pro tip – cover an area much larger than what you think you’ll need! 🙂 Next, find some plastic or paper cups and poke a hole in the bottom about the size of a pencil. Poke a couple more holes in the top sides so you can string some yarn through for swinging the cup. If you’re doing this project with kids, you’ll definitely want to use washable paint. Water the paint down until it flows in a nice even stream when poured; the thinner the paint the better! Lay some heavy cardstock paper or canvas on your covered area and get ready to paint! **To stop the flow of paint while painting, use cups without holes in them to put under the paint cups.

This was definitely a trial and error process to begin with and we had to make the paint holes a little bigger and the paint a little thinner before it would really flow out. If the hole is too small or the paint too thick, you’ll have paint drops instead of a flowing line of paint, although the drops look cool also!

Have fun and stay tuned for our next Make It Monday project! I’ll give you a hint – it involves Sharpie markers, alcohol, and fire 🙂

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