Program Kit: Blacklight Painting for Young Adults

by Laura Damon-Moore

I coordinate the summer programs for kids and young adults at Eager Free Public Library in Evansville, Wisconsin. This summer we ended up with an eclectic assortment of hands-on activities for young adults (mainly middle school students), from Cupcake Wars to Mega Games Day to a Maker Day with squishy circuits, ArtBots, and MaKey-MaKey activities. One program that went over very well for us was our DIY Blacklight Painting Day.

The Setup

I put cheap plastic tablecloths on three big tables (we had 14 attendees and we needed a lot of elbow room). At each spot I put out different surfaces for the attendees to try painting on, such as construction paper, wooden blocks, glass marbles, and plastic toys we had received as donations.

I also set out plastic bowls and spoons at each spot. In the center of each table were containers of acrylic and tempera paint in a variety of colors, and containers of Tide Original laundry detergent which worked very well for us (see full Black Light Paint Recipe below).

The Program

Attendees chose a spot, and we talked about black lights and how they work for 10 minutes or so. Then it was experimenting time – we did not really use strict recipes for this program; rather the attendees started out combining small amounts of detergent with paint until they were well blended. They tested their paints for about 10-15 minutes.

At that point I turned off the lights and held the black lights (the library owns two) over their tables so that they could see which colors were showing up more vibrantly. Then the lights came back on and the attendees re-mixed paints and continued to work on their projects for another 15 minutes. Along the way we discussed what ratio of paint to detergent worked the best; where to find black lights they could use at home; where they’d used or seen black lights before, etc.

We tested the projects under a black light again towards the end of the program. Then it was cleanup time, which took a while as the program room got pretty messy. Attendees took projects home if they were dry; others left them at the library to pick up later.

DIY Blacklight Paint Recipe (4-step recipe from ehow.com):

Supplies

• Liquid laundry detergent
• Bowl
• Blacklight
• Water-based paint (acrylic, tempera, most craft paints)
• Container

Instructions

1. Pour a small amount of liquid laundry detergent into a bowl. Shine a blacklight on the laundry detergent while in a dark room to see if the detergent glows. Some detergents contain bluing agents used to make clothes brighter, and these agents react to a blacklight. If your detergent does not glow under a blacklight, try a different brand.
2. Pour 1 cup of water-based paint into a container. Water-based paints include latex, acrylic and most craft paints.
3. Add 1 tbsp. liquid laundry detergent to the water-based paint. Stir the detergent into the paint until the mixture is uniform in consistency.
4. Shine a blacklight onto the mixture. If the glow of the paint is too faint, add more detergent until you are happy with the results. Keep track of how much detergent you add so that you can mix a larger batch of blacklight paint, if necessary, using the same ratio of paint to detergent.

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