Childhood101

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Kids Art Projects: Using Tape to Create

Immy’s love affair with tape continues!  Add the fact that this art project involved Immy using Mummy’s tape dispenser and we were in heaven over here 🙂  Using a plain white canvas, Immy pulled off lengths of tape (great for developing motor skills) and stuck them to the canvas.  We used regular sticky tape but masking tape or electrical tape would probably work even better on canvas (I would only use masking tape if using paper as your base).

She then painted over the tape with child friendly acrylic paint.  She actually quite liked painting the sections or divisions  that the tape had created.

We left our canvas to dry before peeling away the tape for the big reveal.  And I must say, I quite like the result.

This type of creative relief work can be as simple or as detailed as you like which makes it a perfect project when working with a group of children of different ages, with older children capable of creating really interesting and detailed artwork with tape or Contact paper.

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Christie Burnett is an early childhood teacher, presenter, writer and the editor of Childhood 101. More importantly, she is a Mum who believes wholeheartedly in the value of children learning through play, the importance of quality early education, and the togetherness of family.

Read more of Christie's adventures at https://childhood101.com.

Read the comments or scroll down to add your own:

  1. Colleen - Sunrise Learning Lab says

    January 20, 2011 at 8:23 AM

    Very fun art project! Mine also love tape! hope that you will pop by and will link up your neat project to my post for today: http://sunriselearninglab.blogspot.com/2011/01/reggio-emilia-wednesday-pipe-cleaner.html Colleen:)

  2. Juliet says

    January 20, 2011 at 8:30 AM

    Love your use of primary colours!! I am all for giving children the basic colours and then letting them discover the secondary colours in their painting. The colours created are always so much more pleasing, than had the child been supplied with a mis-match of colours at the start! A similar experience I used to do with my preschoolers was called 'Magic painting'. 1. Use an easel and A3 paper. 2. Supply 2 colours - 1 light and 1 darker one works well (like yellow and red). 3. Get the child to paint their whole paper with the lighter colour (we used to use rollers brushes) 4. Then supply some newspaper that the child rips or cuts into pieces/shapes. They then stick these pieces onto their painted paper (so they have to work quite fast!) 5. They then paint over their whole paper and the newspaper again, this time with the darker paint. 6. Then peel off their newspaper pieces and admire their design!

  3. Ange Moore says

    January 20, 2011 at 9:01 AM

    I'm in love with contact paper stained glass creations - sticking cellophane and sequins and fabric strips to contact and then covering with a second sheet has been a great way of amusing the kids (and not quite as messy to clean up when compared with paint - or is that just me?).

  4. Maxabella says

    January 20, 2011 at 10:46 AM

    Where has this idea been for me? My daughter LOVES taping stuff and she LOVES painting. How have I not put two and two together? Thanks!!! x

  7. KAREN says

    January 25, 2011 at 5:51 AM

    I have done this with the children. The thing I found really interesting was that the children tended to paint on top of the tape... not all over the canvas... interesting! That is even after an explanation of what we were aiming for! I had to keep saying, 'paint all over!'... 'paint anywhere you like!" Ha. :)

  8. elissa says

    April 1, 2013 at 10:43 AM

    I love that this technique is simple enough to use with younger kids, but versatile enough to use with school aged children as well. Here are my thoughts on using it with my elementary kids! http://dontletlifepassyouby.blogspot.com/2011/08/kid-art-masking_26.html

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