What is a mirror image? Think of looking in a mirror – what you see in real life is reflected in the mirror. Try this: Write a number on a piece of paper – make it fill most of the page – and hold it next to the mirror with one edge touching – it looks entirely different. You can recreate that with paint! We made our mirror image paintings in an accordion-folded book.
Use any kind of paint to make a mirror image painting – acrylic, watercolor, tempera, or even homemade paint. There is a recipe for homemade paint on the Kids Blog for August 10.
What you need:
• Paint
• Paintbrush or cotton swab
• Strip of cardstock 8 ½ x 3 inches
What you do:
• Fold the cardstock strip in half.
• Fold the top edge back to meet the fold.
• Flip over and repeat that last step to make an accordion book.
• Open either the front or the back of the book, keeping it folded.
• Apply paint to just one panel. You can go right up to the fold but don’t put any paint on the opposite panel. TIP: Be sure to leave plenty of white space so the paint doesn’t run together.
• When you like your design, fold the opposite page over it and smooth it with your fingers (the paint is inside, in between the pages).
• Open the page again to reveal a mirror image of what you painted!
• Do this for each set of folds in the book. You will have three paintings.
• When the paint is dry, add details with markers – or leave it alone for an abstract art book!
