CHAPTER ONE is dedicated to food coloring. My first memory of food coloring was watching my grandmother decorate her delicious four ingredient birthday cake. I still remember watching her skillful hands decorate the white icing that covered the cake. We had made extra icing and we divided the remainder into several small bowls.
"What colors shall we make the flowers, this time, Dawn?" Grandma asked.
"Oh, let's mix lots," I excitedly responded.
So a few drops of each color, yellow, green, blue and red went into their separate bowls of icing. Then grandma filled the pastry bag and began creating her design. TIP: ( In a pinch you can make your own pastry bag by cutting a piece of parchment about 11 by 15 inches folding diagonally and rolling into a tube). Green leaves, red and blue flowers with yellow centers. Then magic as we mixed blue and red to make purple for the special flowers!
"Voila," Grandma said proudly, "Your Dad will love his cake!"
Maybe watching my grandmother's enjoyment as she worked in her kitchen inspired me to find my creative self. Or watching us mix the primary colors together to create purples and oranges or deeper greens, or perhaps my own name, Dawn, was my inspiration. Whatever my inspiration I love color and I love using my imagination to create projects for kids.
EXPERIMENTING WITH COLOR: This project teaches the first rule of color right in your kitchen. You can create the color wheel with the three primary food colors red, blue and yellow. You'll need the three colors plus a muffin tin, an eye dropper, measuring spoons, water, alcohol, white paper napkins. TIP: (when you are done with the plastic measuring spoons wash them and give them to your infant to play with. Sitting in their highchair he/she will feel like part of the group project and love playing with the colorful plastic spoons).
Using eye dropper place several drops of each color into individual tins. Following the color wheel create the secondary colors; red + yellow = orange, red + blue = purple, blue + yellow = green. Add one tbsp. of alcohol plus one tbsp. water then stir with dropper and begin dropping dye onto napkin. TIP: (Fold the napkin several times dip each corner into the dye and open for a special surprise!) TIP: (Have kids work on parchment paper or cookie tray for fast clean up!)
So besides experimenting with color or having fun filling pastry bags with colorful icing remember dying the white carnation green for Saint Patrick's Day. It was a big hit in the elementary science class.
Well, now try celery.
SCIENTIFIC CELERY: Simple and fast: partially fill several mason jars with water and several drops of food coloring in each TIP: (Neon food coloring is now available). Clean then slice your celery stalks on an angle and place in the jars. Wait several days as you watch the food coloring traveling up the veins of the celery. What you are really doing is watching the celery eat and drink!
These are just a few ideas from CHAPTER ONE of KITCHEN ART. Experiment yourself and see what projects you create!
See you soon! Dawn
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