Under the Sea Handprint Painting

Join us for this easy-to-follow, expressive, handprint painting project using Chroma 2 Washable Tempera. Chroma 2 Washable Tempera Paint is designed with easy clean-up in mind, making it the best paint for playful painting!

When using this or any paint on the skin we highly recommend doing a spot test first, especially if you have sensitive skin.

Materials

• Chroma 2 Washable Paint (Cool Blue, Turquoise, Green Light, Orange, Warm Yellow, White, Black)
• Chromatemp Artist’ Tempera (Fluoro Pink and Fluoro Purple)
• Canvas
• Foam brush
• Round brush
• Paper plates

Step One

We are going to start by painting on the underwater background, using a blend of Green Light, Turquoise and Cool Blue.

Using a foam brush, paint a band across the top of the canvas in Green Light. Overlap this band with a thick band of Turquoise with the same brush. The turquoise color should cover about a third of the canvas. Overlap the bottom edge of the turquoise paint with a band of Cool Blue. Paint the Cool Blue color to the bottom of the canvas. 

Let the paint dry and wash the foam brush in water.

Step Two

Now the ocean background is nice and dry its time to paint in some friendly sea creatures! First on the list is a happy, bright orange crab! Pour the Orange paint onto a paper plate and stamp both hands into the paint. Ensure your hands a very well covered, the more paint the better for this! With wrists touching, stamp both hands at the same time to create a “Crab” print. 

We printed one crab in our ocean but you can have as many as you would like!

Step Three

Wash your hands and pour some Warm Yellow onto a new plate – some friendly Yellow Tang fish are swimming into the picture! Dip your right hand into the paint. Keep your fingers/hand horizontal and press onto the canvas. When stamping the canvas keep your fingers close together and the thumb out for a fin. Stamp on as many as you would like!

Step Four

What has 8 tentacles and 3 hearts? The smartest creature in our painting – the octopus! Wash your hands and pour out the Fluoro Purple paint onto a new plate. Dip one of your hands into the Purple paint and prepare to stamp! For the octopus have your palm upwards and fingers downwards. Speaking of fingers, they need to be gently spaced open as they are the “tentacles” and need to stay separate. 

Stamp on as many purple octopuses as you would like.

Step Five

There is a very special fish that hasn’t entered the painting yet! It’s Nemo, aka the clownfish. For this, we can change it up a bit and pour two colors onto a plate. We used Fluoro Pink and Warm Yellow. Clownfish are usually orange but did you know they can also be red, black and yellow? 

Stamp on the clownfish by extending out your little finger and thumb, with the middle three fingers together.

Let dry.

Step Six

At this point, your whole canvas should be alive with many different colored sea creatures swimming around! It’s important for everything to be dry before starting this next step. 

Using a round paintbrush and white paint, paint on the eyes for these cute sea creatures. For the fish, there will be only one eye because we are looking at them side-on. The eye should be at the front, where the palm of the hand print is. When painting the eyes on the octopus, paint two dots again on the top of the palm area. Mr Crab is a little different, and the eyes need to be placed on the tops of the thumb area.

Step Seven

Now our sea creatures are really coming alive – time to add some final touches to have them perfect! Using Black paint and a small round brush (you can use the end of the brush handle if you don’t have a small brush handy), paint on little eye dots into the white eye dots. Optional: draw on a little smile on each of the creatures! 

The very last details are the little white dots on the octopus and white stripes on the clown fish. Using the smallest round paintbrush paint on a line of dots down the right side of each of the octopus’s tentacles. On the clown fish, paint on two white stripes across the “finger” area of the stamp.

Congratulations – you are now finished! Time to clean up and enjoy your beautiful artwork. 

Our brightly colored Chroma Washable 2 paint will easily remove from most surfaces using cold water and a cloth. To wash paint-covered clothing, soak in cold water overnight then wash in the machine with your regular laundry powder/liquid.