Sea Glass Mermaid Art Project
We ADORE collecting Sea Glass on holiday.. and have a fair few jars around the house with our favourite Sea Glass Collections.. but what to do with it all? What can you make with sea glass? There are lots of use… but one way we decided to craft with our sea glass, as to make this Sea Glass Mermaid Art Project for Kids!
This isn’t so much a “how to”, but a ” this is what we did”…. and hopefully it will inspire you to have a go and create your own. It was very much my daughter’s project and I tried to “interfere” as little as possible!!
Sea Glass Mermaid for Kids – materials
- Sea glass in greens and whites
- Cardboard (as your canvas)
- Paints – blues and greens and reds & some skin tone colours of choice
- “bits and pieces” for hair – we used tissue paper and wool
- Strong PVA glue to attach the Sea Glass
- Brushes
We LOVE using cardboard as art canvases, as it is free, it is recycled AND you can usually get much larger pieces than you would of paper. Allowing for much bigger projects. We used Cardboard for our Jasper Johns’ Flags too.
Our Sea Glass Mermaid for Kids
I confess, we did this mermaid project probably a year ago? Possibly longer.. and it has taken me THIS LONG to FINALLY share it with you. So my memory about our exact steps is a little hazy. The key thing though – is that I tried not to interfere too much and let Pip Squeak do the art herself.
I got her to sketch a design out on paper first, which she then transferred onto our large piece of card. Our card happene dto be white! If it had been brown, we would have proceeded in the same way, but maybe added a little more white paint to the colours as the white is opaque.
Once she sketched out her mermaid she started to paint in the sea.
Again, I encouraged her to use lots of different shades and colours. From white to blue to black as well as some greens. We talked about the “bottom of the sea” being darker with light shining in at the top.
Once she finished the sea.. she pained the hair red and and made the mermaids tail in different shaeds of green. Though we were going to glue the sea glass on top of the mermaids tail, we wanted the under neath to match.
Next we arranged our sea glass from dark green to white sea glass at the top of the mermaids tail. Once it was all in place, we squirted a LOT of PVA glue on top and and underneath and all around.
Once the Sea Glass was glue to the mermaids tail, we realised that the mermaid’s hair looked a bit “flat” in comparison. So we had a rummage around for possible mermaid hair.. and found some tissue paper and wool. Which we cut into strips and glued on.
Lastly she did some black outlines to the arms and ears of the mermaid to help them stand out a little.
We decided at that point that our Sea Glass Mermaid Art Project was finished.. we didn’t want to distract too much from the Sea Glass Mermaids Tail by adding lots more details (e.g. like some fish).
Hang with pride! Hope you enjoyed this Sea Glass project and that it has inspired you to go collecting too. It is a great way to “clean up” beaches responsiblity and collect some wonderful craft materials.
If you are looking for more gorgeous Sea Glass ideas, take a peak at these – you will find something for everyone!:
