Floating Chalk Art

• chalk pastels or chalk

• bin of water

• paper (make sure it fits in the bin you chose)

• plastic knife or an old gift card to scrape the chalk

Begin by filling your tub with water, it doesn’t need to be very full, just enough to cover the bottom of the tub. If you are having trouble with your chalk flakes sinking, try mixing a small amount of dishwashing detergent into the water to help the flakes float better.

Choose a chalk and carefully but firmly scrape chalk onto the surface of the water. We used a plastic knife to scrape down the sides of our chalk pastels which worked really well and was safe for little hands. You could try a variety of different tools for scraping to see which ones work best, but you are looking for something that makes a fine dust, not big flakes.

You can use a skewer to swirl and mix the colours if you like, but be quick and gentle, you want most of the chalk to stay floating on the surface of the water, if it gets too water logged it will sink.

Once you are happy with the amount of chalk floating on the water, take a piece of paper and gently place it onto the surface of the water. Use your finger tips to press the paper gently onto the top of the water.

After a minute or so gently lift the paper off the top of the water to reveal your beautiful floating chalk print!

The prints look magical!

The paper is covered in speckled, swirling, spots of colour, almost like old fashioned marbled paper!