How can I change white cardboard grey for a cave art project?

In my history class yesterday, I had the kids make prehistoric cave art with charcoal, chalk, limestone, and ochre pigments. I also mixed up ochre, charcoal, and chalk watercolors for them to make their own cave art. They had an absolute blast! I gave them grey construction paper, because that was the only grey thing I could find at school. Construction paper, however, LOVES to curl. And, their beautiful art ended up all curled and crumpled. Even the kids who just used charcoal ended up with curled paper.

I'm teaching the same lesson to group of kids tomorrow. I would like for them to make epic art that *doesn't* curl. I have a bunch of white cardboard that I could cut for them to paint on. But it's white. And the chalk and limestone won't show on white. And grey looks more stone line.

So, how do I turn the white cardboard grey, while still allowing for a porous surface that the pigments and watercolors can stick to.

I have a few ideas, but none seem perfect:

Paint them grey with water colors. But the paint will activate when they paint. That's not good.

Paint them grey with acrylic paint. But the paint will make a plastic, non-permeable surface. That's not good.

Use the hydrated lime I have and tint it grey with pigments, and paint that on the cardboard. I'm worried that it won't solidify in 18 hours, and the pigments will reannimate when the kids paint tomorrow.

Hope I have enough just-add-water milk paint to paint a thin coat of grey on 25 pieces of cardboard. Sometimes the milk paint reaanimates, though.

Color it grey with colored pencils or crayons. Crayons are too waxy, so that'd make it impermeable to watercolors. Are colored pencils too waxy?

Try and glue on the grey paper to the white cardboard. The problem is, I didn't bring the paper home to try that out. And the glue might not dry if I do it at 9:00am tomorrow with class starting at 10:00.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

do you have any black ink for sumi-e or calligraphy?
remembering back to my teaching art in museum days, we used to dilute it *super* diluted in water to make gray washes. if you're using chalky pigments and it's super duper diluted to be light grey, activation may not be such a big problem.

*IF* you had more time, using newspaper to make paper makes a very rock-like color and texture... but... Sorry. It's the only thing that comes to mind...

Tereza Okava wrote:do you have any black ink for sumi-e or calligraphy?
remembering back to my teaching art in museum days, we used to dilute it *super* diluted in water to make gray washes. if you're using chalky pigments and it's super duper diluted to be light grey, activation may not be such a big problem.

I have Higgens "Waterproof drawing ink." I could maybe water it down. Do you think painting or ragging would be the best way to apply it?

I'm going to assume it'll dilute in water, because I clean my calligraphy pen with water. And, when it was still wet, it could be reactivated with my watercolor paints (found that out the fun way when making the Northern Wei Dynasty scroll painting).

Nicole Alderman wrote:
I have Higgens "Waterproof drawing ink." I could maybe water it down. Do you think painting or ragging would be the best way to apply it?

considering the amount of paper you have to do, i'd use a rag or a sponge. and yes, water. use very very little ink--- probably somewhere online there is a guide as to dilution but i would say, use less than you think you need. you could always do another coat.

Definite experimentation required, but what about rubbing finely crushed charcoal onto the surface.  That should get into the 'pores' of the cardboard.  I remember that was one of the techniques for charcoal drawing - to smudge for shading.  
Re the curling paper  - is it possible to run a domestic iron over it to flatten it out again?  Teacher only project probably - or send it home to the Moms/Dads.
Edit: drifted off with the fairies for a while there - another idea,  mix dilute grey paint and dab on with a sponge - not too much pressure and the result is a mottled effect.

Have you thought about making milk paint?  Maybe the charcoal suggestion could be used with milk paint?

Or do you feel it is not suitable for poster board?

Anne Miller wrote:Have you thought about making milk paint?  Maybe the charcoal suggestion could be used with milk paint?

Or do you feel it is not suitable for poster board?

I thought about making milk paint, but don't have any skim milk, and only have a little bit of just-add-water milk paint. Since I'm doing the project with my class at 10:00am tomorrow (which is now almost today), I didn't really have time.

I ended up doing Tereza's suggestion. I had to use a bit more black ink than I was thinking I would, and the grey was still paler than I thought. But, it was quick and easy to apply. I also added in some blue ink, because my black diluted to a more brownish/yellow black, and I wanted a bluer black.

The only issue I had was that the poster board decided that it, too, liked to curl. It didn't curl as much as the construction paper used in class did, but it definitely had a curl. I think the amount of water used in diluting the ink was a bit much. I tried pressing it flat, which flattened it. But, it didn't dry. So the instant I took it out of the press, it curled again. I then sandwiched towels between the poster board, which helped it dry a bit more. But, it still curled.

It was then 10:00pm. And I needed to get the poster board cut for tomorrow's class. So, I cut it up and am now pressing all the pieces under some books with a heater blowing at the stack. I'm going to turn off the heater and lay out the boards to dry in a few minutes and go to bed. Let's hope they're not too curled in the morning, and that they don't curl when the kids make their prehistoric art in 11 hours!

You can use a water based paper adhesive tape, and stick the paper to the floor. Then it won't curl during painting.

It didn't curl when painting, though. It curled an hour later while drying. Some of the papers crumpled up 45 degrees and looked like blooming flowers, rather than flat paper. I've always kind of wondered what the point of construction paper was, if it had any benefit over cardstock in some uses. Well, this was not one such use. It obviously was not made for getting wet!

It is because it stretches when water is added, and then shrinks as it dries. You have to leave it stuck to some hard surface until completely dry.

Flora Eerschay wrote:It is because it stretches when water is added, and then shrinks as it dries. You have to leave it stuck to some hard surface until completely dry.

Yeah, the problem is I have one 50 minute class followed by another in the exact same space, with a total of 4 different groups. There's just not room to store all the drying paper :'(

I see :( you can use large wooden boards which can be stacked against the wall until the paper dries, and then cut the drawings out; remaining tape can be washed off every now and then, if too much accumulates. But that may be an investment.
Or, you can straighten the paper after it's dry; in this case you stick it to a board facing the board, wet the back with a sponge and let it dry. I also used glass but all the sheets are broken by now ;)

It's hard to paint something and not have it wrinkled at all, even if you use canvas.

This is such a COOL project!  

I know I'm too late, but I'm going to put it in my brain to think about.  Maybe it can come up with something useful for future projects or maybe it's just a good distraction.  

Random thoughts:

First instinct is charcoal powder and a paper towel to "tone the surface" (quotes are the words to google) but it's only good with dry media going on top.  Paint would probably mess it up.

Second thought is coffee or tea to make it sepia.  But grey was desired.  

Third thought is watercolours - but choose "staining watercolour colours" that won't reactivate much with the new paint.  Get some primary colours to mix a grey.


"stretching watercolour paper" is something we did when I was a kid.  It's more than blocking which is just taping to a hard surface and good enough for most situations.  But it was in the time before art supply stores were common and quality watercolour paper was not something one let kids use.  So the teacher provided much more affordable paper alternatives, and we submerged the paper in warm water, then used water-tape (brown with glue that was activated with water) to put the paper on a board.  Then we did the lesson while the paper dried a little, then we painted on the damp paper.  Sometimes we needed tacks to make the paper stay in place better.  

Some people iron paintings that crinkle.  Put a clean cloth on the ironing board, put paper paint side down, put another cloth that is very slightly damp.  Low heat.  Iron with care.  Check often.  Sample first because some paint sucks at this.  

The ink washed cardboard worked! My camera died, or I would have taken pictures. The kids had an absolute blast (and made an absolute mess!). Some kids just smeared dry pigment the whole times. Some painted pokemon. Others made prehistoric stories like cats battling other cats to protect humans, or a megafauna chicken shielding her human from the rain. Some kids got into grinding everything they could in the mortar and pestle (many kids are now begging their parents for their own mortar and pestles), and other mixed every color they could together. Some experimented with flicking paint from the brushes. It was super cool to see what the kids could do with chalk, soapstone, charcoal, yellow ochre, red ochre, and gum Arabic.

I'm so glad I didn't take the "easy" route of having the kids just draw with pastels on paper. They learned so much through their experimental archeology ♥.

Thank you all for your help!!!

megafauna chicken shielding her human from the rain

My new most favourite sentence ever.

r ranson wrote:

megafauna chicken shielding her human from the rain

My new most favourite sentence ever.

That was my son's art from Monday. At first, I thought the megafauna chicken was eating the human (my son has a propensity to draw chickens who kill those who eat chicken meat), but, no, chicken was shielding human from the rain ♥.

(This was done on the grey construction paper, and since I had it at home, I could throw it in my scanner. I don't have any of the cardboard art from today, since my kids aren't in today's class.)

I figured it was one of your kids who would have a chicken sheltering someone from rain!!

Glad it worked out.
I have taught high school and college language professionally, but I interned for two years in college as a children's art educator at a museum and it was so amazing. Giving kids hands-on time with art supplies really has an impact for them in the future, and it's so fulfilling. (and when things go wrong, they go spectacularly wrong, especially when you're teaching in a museum, but let's just leave that aside, shall we?) That was my "supposed to" career path (alas, graduate school funding...), and it being 25 years ago I had forgotten just how rewarding it was.

Watching the kids experiment with the various media and methods was SO COOL. They all took the art in so many different ways, and everyone really enjoyed it.

I hope you can find a way to bring art to others again, even if it's just a few people for a short time. I love seeing their creativity and watching them learn, and seeing how proud they are of what they've made.

(And, yeah, when things go wrong, they do go wrong in big ways! I try really hard to prevent fights over resources, tears over material not working, utter distress about accidents, etc. But, it still happens! I'm glad I'm not trying to do it in a museum!)