Paint Pour Planets

The little boys and I have been learning about our solar system.  It’s always helpful to visualize and get some hands on experience.  We’ve enjoyed paint pour projects so much in the past.  I thought the way the colors swirl and mix to create such cool effects would be perfect for planets.   It’s also easy and fun for kids to do!  

Get your art teacher pants on and you can talk about how to achieve different hues.  They can mix colors and observe how they behave together.  

Materials used:

•  Good old CARDBOARD – we used lots of pizza boxes.  For Jupiter we used a piece of carboard from the dollar store
•  Acrylic Paints 
• Paint brushes 
• Cups to mix and pour the paints from 
• Garbage bags or other cover to protect your surfaces 
• Hooks with wall adhesives and string to hang them from.  Or whatever else you decide. No strings would be nice, but our planets weren’t perfectly flat and I wanted to avoid damage to wall paint. 
• Cotton balls for clouds – optional 
• Glitter for Saturn’s rings – optional  

What type of paint should I use? 

Acrylic paint is my favorite.  It provides thick coverage and dries quickly.  You will water it down considerably to pour on.  

How much water should I add to the paint? 

I didn’t measure the ratio for you, sorry. But it’s not hard to figure out as you go.  Hey, you could make that another part of your learning experience as well.   You do want it pretty soupy.  If that answer isn’t sufficient for you, you can head over to the Left Brained Artist who gives you a couple techniques you can use to test the consistency.  

How to Prepare Acrylic Paint for Pouring

What we used to trace the planet sizes:

Mercury – the mouth of a large party cup

Venus and Earth – a small plate 

Mars – a standard bowl 

Jupiter – a garbage lid 

Saturn – a pizza pan 

Neptune and Uranus – a dinner plate 

I intend on having my 8 year old print and label the planets as well.  He’s been having a lot of fun on NASA’s website.  They have some great resources for kids. We spent a lot of time on their Solar System and Beyond page.  

Finally, I’m sure you’re all wondering about the AWESOME GALAXY LIGHTING!!! 

It turned our fun planets craft into a wow planets craft.  My mom bought this astronaut galaxy projector for my son for Christmas and we truly love this thing.  For good reason, just look at how it fills the room.  You can have the stars on or off.  There are multiple galaxy colors.  It’s GORGEOUS, calming and simply the best projector light we’ve ever had. 

Click here to a link to purchase one.