I saw this great idea on Pinterest with tape and acrylic paints. (pictured below)

I wanted to something similar in our art camp with little kids as that activity is more for older kids or adults.

So we bought canvas boards and acrylic paint and tried to figure out what we could do.

We decided to have the kids do their names so it would be something they could always keep and appreciate and maybe even hang in their rooms. We’ve done so much abstract art I figured their parents would also appreciate something that has lasting value as a memento from camp.

I wanted the idea of dividing the space and have them use the acrylics to paint in different boxes by using the many delicious acrylic colors we had bought.

We started by lightly writing their names in large in pencil. We then gave them their boards and lots of rolls of tape and told them to tape over their names.

We then gave them pencils and told them to make many boxes over their names and the whole board.

As I have found, they never do what you envision, and most of them ended up just making lines down over the whole board.

We let them choose the colors they wanted and put the colors on a Styrofoam vegetable tray. They then had to fill in their boxes or shapes with the different colors.

After the boards were all l painted we allowed them to dry overnight.

They then peeled off the tape to reveal their names

Since these are 8×10 boards you can easily find a frame for them.

One of mistakes we made with this activity is that we used pencil to write their names on the boards. We had an extremely hard time getting the pencil marks off the boards after they pulled their tape off.

I googled the problem and it seems there is a real problem with this. In the end we just took some white acrylic paint and painted over the lines as best as we could.

I’m not sure how I would solve this problem if we had to do it again but, if you have any ideas I would love to hear them in the comments below.