Great Fire of London

Marbling Fire Silhouettes

 

By using marbling inks in water, my year 1 and 2 classes created wonderful fire of London pictures.

You can get marbling ink from any craft shop but I have seen this done with powdered coloured chalk too. I used marbling ink because I wanted that swirl effect you get in fire.

Fill a tray, that will fit an A4 piece of paper, with water about 2cm deep. Drop a few dots of ink into the water. I used the three warm colours to get the best fire affect. Allow the children to swirl the inks gently with a straw or pencil.

Lay the sheet of white paper on top. Careful not to press the paper into the water. I used a sheet or cartridge paper which is usually used for watercolours as it handles the water better. If the paper is too thin, the paper will curl whilst drying. The pattern made by the ink on top of the water will be transferred to the paper.

You can get a couple of vivid prints from the ink before needing to add more ink. The more often you replace the ink the more bright and fire looking the prints will be.

While the prints were drying, the children drew house silhouettes on black sugar paper and cut them out so they could be stuck on the bottom of the fire prints.