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Technique: Color Blending with Mineral Spirits

July 13, 2009 by Vikram Goyal

image by Heather Hobrook

image by Heather Hobrook

One of my favorite coloring techniques is using colored pencils and blending them with odorless mineral spirits. It gives a really smooth, soft look and makes for wonderful shading, shadowing and blending.
I recommend the Gamsol brand of mineral spirit put out by Inky Antics, it comes in a bottle with a sponge applicator top so it’s very easy to use. But you can also buy other brands of odorless mineral spirits (Mona Lisa makes one) in art supply stores or the fine art section of your local craft store. Make sure you store it in an air tight container though as it can easily evaporate. You’ll also need some good quality art pencils, ones that have a high wax content, I prefer Prismacolor Pencils; some blending stumps; and some high quality smooth white cardstock. If this technique is not giving you the desired results try changing cardstocks, it can make a big difference with this technique.
First you want to stamp your image with a permanent or waterproof ink (like Staz-On) and then color your image with the pencils, I like to start with my darker colors around the edges and then add lighter tones going inward, then rub the tip of your stump onto the sponge applicator on the Gamsol bottle and then in small circular motions blend your colors together with the stump, careful not to over blend, you want to pull the colors together without muddying them into one color. You can also use one single color and use the mineral spirit to pull the color out and make it lighter. On the sample I made above on the bird you can see I blended orange, yellow and green together but in the hippo I only used one color of grey but used the mineral spirits to lightened it and  get different shades of that one color.
Inky Antics has a nice tutorial on their site also.
I hope you give this fun technique a try for yourself.
-Heather

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Corn Learning Activities

Years ago I did a post all about using Indian corn (or flint corn) in learning activities, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a post about regular corn learning activities, so let’s get into it. 

Print out this corn number recognition activity from I Heart Crafty Things and use yellow dot stickers for kids to match and cover the numbers from 2 to 12 that they get when rolling dice. Or do some corn kernel math with these ideas from Gift of Curiosity. Kids can guess how many kernels are in a cup or bowl, then count them, and learn about grouping 5 or 10 kernels together and using skip counting to count faster if they’re ready for that. 

I think the only language arts corn learning activity I found was this letter recognition activity from My Pre K Box. Print out the corn shape and use round stickers to match the letter on the kernel to the one on the sticker. 

I found a lot of printables that include the life cycle of corn and other activities, like this one from MomBrite, which includes a word search and other activities; or this 16-page Montessori inspired corn unit study that includes life cycle, labeling, three part cards and more from Only Passionate Curiosity; or the corn worksheets from Simple Everyday Mom, which includes writing practice, a letter identification maze and a label the parts of corn worksheet. 

Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus has a free for subscribers printable life cycle foldout that is a fun way to present the information. They used it in a sensory bin but you can just use it as a part of teaching about corn if you’d rather. 

Dancing corn is a classic science activity done with baking soda and vinegar. Get the instructions from Fun Learning for Kids.

Kids Konnect has a set of printables and facts all about corn mazes, which is fun if going to a corn maze is part of your fall tradition. 

And you can craft a funny ear of corn with this printable from Craft Corner DIY.

14 Mexican Street Corn Recipes [Edible Crafts]

 

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