Painting with Jack Frost

One frosty morning last year, whilst my youngest daughter was still in Kindergarten, the children did some watercolour paintings which they left outside for Jack Frost to embellish. I remember the wonder in the childrens’ eyes at the magic of this moment and I wanted to try to recreate it for my daughters this year.

We have been having our fair share of frost here, but as one can never predict the weather here in the UK, you have to seize the moment when you can! As it was due to continue to be frosty over the weekend,  (-7 C  on Saturday night – Brrr!), I decided to be pro-active and put some watercolour paper in the bath to soak overnight.

The paper needs to be nice and wet through (but not dripping!) and then all you need to do is fill a page with watercolour paint.  My daughters just used blue watercolour paint to fill their paper (as they were impatient to go out and break up the ice on our pond!). Last year my daughter’s class used blue and red.

And then they took the paper outside for Jack Frost to do his magic. The paper should be removed from the painting board and placed on the ground at this point my daughter informed me.

I sprayed the paper a little with water – it needs to be wet enough, but not soaking (or ice crystals will form -and then melt again once inside – I speak from experience!) and very soon, the typical feathery patterns started to appear.

These photos don’t show the art work in all its glory, but I think you get the idea, hopefully. It was so magical and exciting for us all to see the invisible hand of Jack Frost at work. 🙂

I would highly recommend this activity for its simplicity and magic.