Painting with Pens: Making DIY Watercolor Pens with Maestro Giosuè

Looking for a fun, safe, and easy DIY craft activity for your kids? This one can be ready in no time, and you probably have all the materials in your house right now. Kids can experiment with color combinations, and the food dye easily washes out with a little soap. Younger children will probably need help with the fiddly steps, like rolling the pens and using the pipette or straw.

To show us how it’s done, we met up with Giosuè S, an eight-year-old student at Blossom Montessori. Don’t let his tender age fool you, however, because Giosuè is a serious artist. When he’s not drawing with watercolors, he is usually working on his comic books “Amazing Guy” and “Captain Thunder,” playing music with his brother or cuddling the family cats Dupa, Pillow, and Lulu.

Let’s get started!

What You’ll Need

Cotton swabs
Wet wipes
Food dye
Water
A plastic pipette or straw
Scissors
Sticky tape
Jar lids or any other waterproof containers
Paper to paint on

Step 1:

Lay a wet-wipe flat on the table, and cut it in half.

Step 2:

Roll the wet wipe around the cotton swab, leaving some of the tip exposed as the nib of the pen. Trim the end of the wet wipe to the length of the swab if necessary.

Step 3:

Take a large piece of sticky tape and wrap it around the pen. This will help keep your hands dry and clean and hold the shape of the pen. Repeat steps one through three for as many pens as you want to make.

Step 4:

Put approximately two tablespoons water in a jar lid or other container, and add six to ten drops of food dye, then mix together. Repeat for as many colors as you want. You can easily adjust the amount of water and dye to your liking.

Step 5:

Use the pipette to carefully drop the dye onto the tip of the pen. Watch as it soaks up the colors! Alternatively, use a straw, putting one end in the dye, and blocking the other end to create suction.

Step 6:

Time to paint with your DIY watercolor pens! Either make up the design as you go along or follow Giosuè’s suggestion and draw an outline first. You can “recharge” your pens at any time.