What I Wish I Had Been Taught About Art Series

Explorations with Bubble Art

Embracing my inner child in art

Photo by the author of her bubble art project

Art has the amazing ability to help our mental health. It helps us calm down and focus on a single project, blocking out the outside world. The fine hand motor coordination and bright colors can help our brains to disconnect from the stress of our everyday lives and be encompassed in the world we are creating.

This effect is amplified when we don’t put a lot of pressure on the project. It is simply an activity to help us destress and we will get something beautiful out of it. A wonderful way to “force” you into this mindset if you have trouble setting aside your perfectionist tendencies is to embrace some inner child art: art that you did as a child or is often used with children today. This art is so simple that even preschoolers can do it, so why not you?!

This inner child art can be especially freeing, allowing us to simply enjoy the process instead of tearing apart our work, obsessing over every “imperfect” detail. I’ve talked before about some wonderful inner child artwork to try out and I finally got the opportunity to try out some bubble art, which has been on my list for a while. I did a little bit of research on the best supplies and methods. In general, I found two general sets of materials and two different methods.

For the base of your bubble “paint”, I found two different options: bubble solution or DIY bubble solution from dish soap and water. Then the color was added using either food coloring or paint, typically tempera or watercolor for the latter.

In the first method, you created your bubble “paint” mixture in a cup, stuck a straw in it, blew bubbles until they covered the top of your cup, and then placed a piece of paper over the bubbles at the top of your cup. In the second method, you created your bubble “paint” and then used a bubble wand found in bubble solution bottles to blow directly onto a piece of paper.

I wanted the kinesthetic experience of blowing the bubbles and so I focused on that method. I saw mixed results for which set of materials worked the best and so I went to my local Dollar Tree and purchased bubble solution, dish soap, tempera paint, and food coloring…