Ice Painting for Valentine’s Day

Ice painting is a fun art activity that came about after our frozen vinegar hearts science exploration. Heart-shaped ice would be great for Valentine’s Day, but you could use this activity any time of the year.

Ice Painting

I used heart-shaped silicon molds to create our ice hearts. {You could use ice cube trays or any freezer-safe container.}

Prepare for ice painting in 3 easy steps:

1. Fill the molds with water.
2. Add a drop or two of food coloring. {I added 2 drops in each of my hearts. To mix colors, I added one drop of each color. For example, to make purple, I added one drop of blue food coloring and one drop of red food coloring.}
3. Place the molds in the freezer and allow water to freeze.

I put Aiden in a paint shirt since we were using food coloring. Food coloring is water soluble and eventually washes off your hands without too much effort. {What doesn’t come off at first should easily wash away after a bath.} I’m not sure how easily food coloring washes out of clothes – I haven’t tried it. {I don’t think Aiden got any food coloring on his clothes this day anyway – just his hands.}

Aiden was immediately drawn to the colorful ice. Although he thought we were going to repeat the fun we had the first time he explored frozen hearts. That time we had were working on science learning. This time we were just focusing on art and play.

I presented Aiden with a piece of white paper. He lined up the ice hearts and started moving them around the paper.

I told him he could paint the paper with hearts. He requested a paint brush because he wanted to paint the hearts.

After a few minutes of painting the ice, he went back to moving the hearts around the paper. He noticed the ice melted and left colorful marks on the paper.

He asked to place the ice in water. The ice painting turned into ice play at this point. He watch the heart-shaped ice melt and saw their colors mix.

 This was a fun sensory activity and different way to paint for us. Have you ever tried ice painting?

More Valentine’s Day Ideas

• Frozen vinegar hearts are a great science idea perfect for Valentine’s Day.
• Make a simple heart craft and turn it into a learning activity.
• Look through our past Valentine’s Day ideas here.

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