Balloon Printing | Exploring Negative Space

By Alissa Marquess Zorn on September 16, 2011 (updated October 24, 2016)

We’ve been printing with balloons again! Only this time my ten year old niece gave us the great idea to use the negative space. This is one of my favorite things about creating with kids- I get inspired too!

Aren’t you just tickled when you get blown away by a simple idea?

She’s holding up her just-printed with balloon. On the right you can see the printed face. All she did was paint a circle and then wiped off the paint to make the facial features.

Next time around she added color in the white areas. The balloon pressing part of this activity adds an interesting dimension. You get to see what happens when you roll the image across the paper, then you can try just smooshing straight down.

For the heart picture I painted the balloon using a large bristled brush which resulted in an intriguing texture. I love the way the brush strokes transferred to the paper.

My favorite part about this art activity is that it’s fun for a huge range of ages. My four year old had a blast smooshing out images, as did my six year old, all the way up to me, who wanted to keep playing with this negative-space-printing idea beyond the length of the kids’ attention span.

Happy Creating!