Painting a Pollock

I truly hope that everyone has heard of Jackson Pollock.  If you don't know him by name, I am sure that you would know some of his work.  He is the guy that was famous for doing splatter paintings.  Yesterday, I decided that the kids and I would try our hand at creating one.

I started out with a gessoed canvas of a horrible art school fail.  It was such a ginormous fail that I didn't even take a photo of it before I applied a nice layer of gesso over the top. 

I loaded up some squeeze bottles with a mixture of acrylic paint and some water to thin it down.  I let Maben choose which colors went when.

I then let the kids go to town on making a giant mess.  It was loads of fun!

I couldn't let Colton miss out on all the fun.  He thought it was a blast too! 

"Look mom, a mess!"  Colton didn't actually say that, but that is his, "I did it!" face...and usually I'm not a happy camper when that face comes out.  This was an exception.  I was supervising this mess.

Hard at work.  They were determined to cover as much canvas as possible.

Our completed work.  It's a fantastic, colorful, beautiful mess of paint.

And here are the super proud, messy artists posing with their masterpiece.  I think it's ready for the Guggenheim...don't you? 

And this view to show you just how much paint is really on that canvas.  It's going to take days to dry!  If you try this with your kids, make sure you have a safe/level place for the canvas to dry.  Mine is out in our garage with a dehumidifier.  I will make sure to show it off once it is dry and hung on a wall.

A few notes about this whole process.  Acrylic paint washes off of skin easily.  It will not come out of clothes.  When cleaning up acrylic paint, use cold water.  The whole point is to have fun and make a mess...so have fun and make a mess!!!

Linking this project up at: