Elementary Art: Tie-Dye Paper Towels

Hey everyone! I wanted to show you a really cool project we did with our summer camp at The Huntington Museum of Art. These turned out super cute and I thought it might be a project you could easily do at home during this crazy time. Every paper towel brand uses a different design on their paper towel. You could even do this project without the sharpie if you’d like but I think adding the outlines to the design give its an extra edge. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Materials

These are the materials you will need for this project.

-Paper Towel

-Black Sharpie

-Watercolor Paint

-Paintbrush

Design

Every paper towel brand is different. You might be able to find all different kinds of patterns.

The Sharpie

Use the sharpie to trace the pattern. You can use the dotting method or connecting the dots to make lines. I would suggest putting your paper towel on top of something because it will bleed through onto your table if you don’t.

Perfect!

After you get the pattern outlined, you can start to paint.

Watercolor

If you have never used water color paint before, it is rather simple. You dip the paintbrush into water and then apply it to the paint. That will get your paint wet and allow you to use it.

Begin!

Go ahead and start adding the colors to your paper towel. The colors will probably spread out because the paper towels are absorbing the water.

Color Choices

You can start by adding colors but if you put the wrong colors next to each other they might look muddy. Think about what colors create other colors. You have you primaries: Red, Blue and Yellow. You can mix your primaries to get your secondaries: Orange, Purple, Green. It would look awesome if you put red and blue with purple in the middle. It will look like those colors are blending together. Be creative and experiment!

Let It Dry

After you finish painting, you will need to sit it aside to dry. You can even put it out in the sun for a bit but make sure it doesn’t fly away!

Tie-Dye

As it dries you will notice the cool tie-dye effect it gives off.

Finished!

The really great thing about this project is every brand for paper towels is different. Try different designs! I also like to glue mine to a black sheet of paper when it is finished to give it a border. Try it out and let me know what you all think! Stay tuned for more.