Review: Kwik Stix

One of the things that keeps us from doing art is the cleanup- but with Kwik Stix 12 pk from The Pencil Grip, Inc. there's no mess to clean! We were given a 12 pack of Kwik Stix to try, along with a Single Grip, which we haven't tried yet.  What did we do with our Kwik Stix? Well let me show you!

Normally I'm not a big fan of art, so I make sure we get in our hours with camps, classes, and during December.  Our coop goes on break and so I use the extra time to fit in lots of art projects, but my kids really love art, so I was happy to give them an unexpected "Art Morning".  We listened to some classical music and did two projects, which were both a lot of fun, although neither one was specifically a "tempera" project when I found it.  Kwik Stix are fast-drying, so they're paint (Tempera paint, specifically), but they're dry in 90 seconds or less, which means you're not sitting around waiting for paint to dry!

First we did some bubble paintings.  We used black paper and the white Kwik Stix to trace around circles we made using different objects in our house.

 Next we used the various other colors included in our 12 pack to add the rainbow effects you see when you blow bubbles, leaving lots of black space so they still looked transparent.  My daughter really liked this project (age 8) and made two.

 Some of us even got creative and added some popped bubbles.  The original of this project called for oil pastels, but I wanted to see how the coverage was on black paper, and I think that the Kwik Stix did a fantastic job! I was really impressed with the white paint on black paper.

 Next we decided to go for something a little more classically inspired.  We read a little about Monet and decided to make some Monet-inspired dot art to go in my husband's new office.  He has a new 6-cabinet filing system, and so he was in the market for some new kid-art anyway!   We used canvases from a craft store, and the kids marked lightly with pencil to show where their water would be and where their flora would go.  I think these turned out really beautifully!! Again, we didn't follow the original directions I found, which had you use painters tape to mark off the bridge- instead we just let our background dry (it's only 90 seconds!) and then used the white to draw on our bridges, and it did a great job! The Kwik Stix are round, so they lent themselves nicely to impressionism, although they also did a great job drawing lines on our bubbles!

 The 8 year old's painting (and the 8 year old)

 The 12 year old's painting (He really likes art and enjoyed this very much.  He was also happy with how the colors blended- he was dubious about how this would work out with "quick drying paint" since he likes to blend his shades- but he was quite pleased with his final product).

And the 10 year old's painting.  He does not like art, was not thrilled that we were doing two projects, but I think that his turned out lovely, as well.  I'm not sure you can really see them, but I like his lily pads with pink flowers :)

We really enjoyed making art with our Kwik Stix, and I especially like having the option for the kids to grab them and paint without me having to worry about spills or messes.  They really make painting no more difficult or messy than using markers or crayons.  These would be a great buy for summer fun, and we hope that you'll try them out, too!