THE TOOLS
MATERIALS:
- Paint Pens in various colors and sizes (can also use acrylic paint and brush)
- Fixative Spray (optional but will help protect your beautiful work!)
- White Acrylic Paint
- River Rocks or any rocks that have a flat surface
- Fun Bag to put your story stones in (I reused one I had lying around, OPTIONAL)
- Paintbrush
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THEME: Imaginative Story telling
ART LINGO: 3-D, Painting + Drawing
APPROX TIME: 30min+
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: Any Age!
Summertime at our house is filled with lots of relaxing downtime. No art classes to teach or programs to run just the simplicity of summer with lots of story time and imaginative play. I love how this simple yet creative project is such a nice blend of both! Join me for a super simple yet open ended creative project littles and big kiddos will love creating stories over and over again!
Story Stones as I like to call them are just painted river rocks that have a distinctive theme tossed in a bag that lead to endless hours of imaginative play! You start your story ‘Once upon a time’….then pick a rock out which leads to the next prompt in the story and this continues until all the stones have been taken out of the bag. There are hundreds of different outcomes and endless possibilities of where the story can go. We have a few story stones bags from fairy tales to zoo animals. The creative opportunities are endless!
You ready to get to it?? COME ON AND SCROLL DOWN WITH ME
STEPS
Step 1:
Go gather some fun shaped rocks! Take a walk, a hike, ask a neighbor or purchase them at a craft store. You will want at least 5 rocks to tell a fun story with. The only rule of thumb is to make sure your rocks are smooth and mostly flat so you can paint on them easily! I used some black river rocks we had in our garden. (See Photo 1) When ready use some white acrylic paint and begin painting the rocks to set a base color. You could leave the rocks unpainted but I like to see the pop of color of the paint pens against a white background so I gave my rocks 2-3 coats of white paint on both sides (See Photo 2). Keep adding layers of paint (allow to dry in between) until you reach your desired opaqueness. My 3 year old helped me paint these one afternoon this week and it was so fun to get to work on this project with her. (See Photo 3 & 4)
Step 2:
Once your rocks are dry grab your paint pens and begin thinking of your theme. I choose a fun woodland animal theme. You can source inspiration from found animal images online or just start creating from your own imagination. I knew I had 8 stones to work with so I was able to choose a raccoon, a fox, hedgehog, owl, turtle, squirrel, sun and a moon….so fun! (See photos 5). Begin by sketching your design out or just jumping in and outlining your animal. I like to outline my design then add all the fun details layers by layers. (See Photos 6 & 7).
Have fun here, get creative and know that it doesn’t have to look realistic. They can be made up creatures or real life animals/plants. When you are done marvel at your goodness and get ready to create some imaginative creative stories! (See Photo 8).
I hope you have as much fun as we did making these!
See you next month friends! Stay Creative!
xx
Mrs. K!
