Irresistible Wax Resist Art Project for Kids

Creating resist art is a fun experience with a little bit of science thrown in for good measure! Your child will marvel at the magic of this irresistible wax resist art project for kids.

When you use an oil-based medium with a water-based one, the children will see how oil (or wax) really does resist water and creates a beautiful result! Today, I am using yellow, but you can use white or other bright-colored pastels, depending on the final outcome that you are looking for.

Oil or Wax Resist Art Project for Kids

Explore more of the physics behind mixing oil/wax and water with these 6 Simple Physics Science Experiments For Kids!

You will need:

• Paper
• Pencil (optional)
• Oil pastels (crayons can work too)
• Paint (water colors or acrylics, as pictured)
• Paint brushes
• Water

With your oil pastel, make a fun design to cover your paper. Bright colors are recommended because they stand out and children can see their design. White is also great, but hard to see the design on white paper. If you are doing a more complicated design, a light pencil sketch can help with planning things out. If pencil is used, you should trace directly over it with you oil pastel so it doesn’t show through.

Tip: Make sure that you leave some white space on the paper, so that the paint can be absorbed in that white space.

Once you have completed your design, it’s time to paint! Dip your brush into you water and then into your paint. You want to let the brush stay pretty wet so that you can move the paint over the paper with ease. It is totally fine paint right over your design. In fact, that’s exactly what you should do! Have fun noticing where the paint is resisted by the oil pastel versus where it is soaked in.

Once you have your first color down, clean your brush, then go straight to the next and the next after that. It is fine if the paints run into each other a bit. Notice if the colors mix and what colors they create!

For younger children, it is you can either have them draw a picture to color, offer stencils, or even just let them color with one or two pastels then paint. For older children (K and up) you can get more sophisticated. Invite them to make a pattern and see what happens. I chose suns, but if they choose something like fish, they can play with blue paints and create an ocean scene. This would be a great idea if you are doing a unit on ocean or sea life!

The possibilities are endless!