Painting Egg Carton Ice Cubes

Every other month Rachelle at Tinkerlab challenges her readers to incorporate a new item into their art making. We can always use a little inspiration, so I am jumping onboard!  This month's challenge: the egg carton.

I never know what is going to strike my little guy at a given moment, but an ice/paint combo seemed like a great place to start.    We pretty regularly paint with ice cubes, but I thought it might be a fun to paint on ice cubes.   Our egg cartons are plastic so I filled one with water and stuck it in the freezer.  I taped a piece of white fabric down to the table, thinking he might like seeing the water patterns form as the ice cubes melted.  And, I put out a plate of paints.  

He came to the table and we popped out some of the ice cubes.  He spent a long time painting the cubes on the table and those still in the carton (and, of course, painting himself!). We noted the thinner coats of paint freezing on the ice and then turning into swirly puddles as the cubes melted. There was a lot of moving the cubes around and pretending they were ice rinks.  There was stacking and dropping.  He ended by putting all the cubes back in the carton.  He handed them to me saying they were cupcakes for Mother Elephant to take to a party.   A fantastic first challenge!  Thanks for a great art time, Tinkerlab!