Rorschach Butterfly

Hey ya'll!!!

Now as an art-teacher, if there is one art form that I love teaching children a lot it is probably the Rorschach Butterfly. What's there not to love; its easy fun, easy to do, and creates this really amazing looking end product... the only downside to it is perhaps the potential mess this form of artwork can create... but then again, what's a little mess in the name of arts! In fact, just between the lot of us, I sometimes like to get leftover paint on my clothing purposely for the sole reason that I think (and I'm sure you will agree with me) that it looks rather quite artistic! Anyway I digress... so, it all started yesterday morning when I got up ahead of schedule (waken from my slumber by a particularly satisfactory dream whereby I was feasting upon the most delicious sundae I've ever had in my life) when I started going through the pictures of the art-class I used to teach at this refugee centre... and while, for obvious security purposes, I'm not allowed to publish pictures of the children here or anywhere else, I did get permission to showcase their artwork... here they are, the pictures I mean...

Rorschach butterflies are an easy and fun activity for any aspiring artist, all that is needed is a bunch of colours (I find poster paints work the best because of their consistency) and a set of art-block papers with good absorbent qualities. All you need to do is drizzle paint down the middle of the art-block in any patterns and combination of colours that you like... fold the paper in half... and VOILA!!!!

Beautiful Rorschach Butterflies!!!

My favourite butterfly by one of my brilliant students; Rahim.

Beautiful things, aren't they? So anyway I got up, and had quite some time on my hands left before I had to finally get up and at it and head off to work so why not, I thought try some quick and easy artwork myself... better yet, why not try it on a shirt!!! And just as luck would have it, I still had some cloth dye lying around from the last time I decided to get creative and print and shirt and also, a plain white V-neck Tee from Cotton-on that had this stubborn horrible stain in the centre of it that cannot be washed off. Perfect!!! So I placed the customary layer of cardboard between the two layers of the shirt (to avoid seepage from the front to the back) and dribbled on the paint... and the VOILA!!!

Pretty amazing stuff huh! And the patterns are always 'accidental' and 'random' so everytime you unfold the piece of art for the first time its like this special artsy easter egg!!! 

And that's me wearing it!