Is It Cake?

I adore this art experience, because the materials are simply laid out and everyone is free to explore. Liquid watercolours, citrus, droppers. From there, the page becomes a place to try things and see what happens!

Kids will start noticing the science very quickly. Mixing and reacting and changing. There’s a lot to watch if you slow down enough.

Add baking soda sparingly for extra fizz and texture.

Limit the palette to yellows, greens, and oranges.

Artists scoop, pour, tip, and pretend. Tiny teaspoons get a real workout and are brilliant for fine motor control. The play that unfolds is imaginative and focused without being loud or chaotic.

Why We Love It It feels grown-up in the best possible way! Kids love being trusted with real tools and materials, and the play that emerges is calm, focused, and deeply satisfying. It’s also incredibly easy to recreate at home, in classrooms, or in studios. A kitchen table works just as well as a big open floor.

If coffee beans aren’t suitable for your space and or you don't use consumables, large seeds, wooden beads, or smooth pebbles work just as well.

Variations

Add ice cubes for sound and temperature contrast.

Use clear cups to highlight colour gradients.

Limit the palette to a single colour family for a calmer feel.

Load up the circles with brushes, sponges, rollers, or fingertips. Paint can stay neatly separated or be mixed straight on the tray. Both work beautifully, and watching the colours swirl and meet is half the joy.

Lay a sheet of A3 paper over the top and press down firmly with your hands, or flip the tray onto the paper in one confident movement. Peel it back and reveal a whole tray of prints in one go. It always feels good.

You can print again straight away, rotate the paper, or layer another pass over the top.

Liquid watercolours create a softer, more translucent print.

Rotate the paper and print again so the circles overlap and build up layers.

Line finished prints up side by side to create a bakery-style display.

This experience is inspired by Melbourne illustrator and designer Alice Oehr, whose cake illustrations are graphic and bold. She's also written lots (and lots) of books (both non-fiction and kids' books), including my personal favourite; 'The Art of Cake'.

While Alice often uses printmaking, collage gives artists a similar visual impact through layering, pattern, and contrast.

This is the perfect place to repurpose old paintings and scraps, or to prepare a pile of painted collage papers ahead of time. Think texture and mark making rather than neat shapes. If time is tight, paint sticks work beautifully because the paper dries instantly and can be used straight away. The best!

Each artist works on a thick A3 base. We often glue a coloured A4 sheet into the centre as a kind of frame, referencing Alice’s bordered compositions, but this is just a design choice (and totally optional).

This is a hands-first process! Start by experimenting with tearing paper rather than cutting it. Ripping creates edges that feel softer and more cake-like, and it keeps the work loose from the start. Thick tears and thin strips and curved edges and accidental shapes! It's also lovely to chat about colour choices, and contrasting patterns. If you're able to take a look at Alice's work, you'll no doubt be struck by how gorgeous her colour choices are! She's a colour wiz for sure.

Gradually encourage the kids to build their layers (just like baking in the real world). A base for the plate or cake stand. Larger shapes for cake layers. Smaller pieces stacked on top for icing, fillings, and decorative details. Pieces get shuffled, overlapped, pulled off, and tried again before any glue comes out. That moving-around stage is important. It’s where decisions get made without pressure.

Once the composition starts to feel right for the artist, glue everything down from the bottom up.

I think it's great to focus more on flavour and feeling than precision or perfect outcomes!

Limit the palette to two or three colours plus one patterned paper for a more graphic look.

Work collaboratively on one large “bakery window” instead of individual pieces.

Add drawn details over the top with oil pastel or paint marker once everything is dry.

Shaving foam marbling sticks around for a reason. It’s such a playful and surprising process, and still feels magical no matter how many times you’ve done it.

Set out trays with cans of shaving foam, liquid watercolours, scrapers or squeegees, and a large container nearby for scraping excess foam into. Icy-pole sticks or chopsticks work well for swirling and mixing. But my favourite is when the kids dive in (hands first!).

Pre-cut cupcake elements, made of thick cardstock, have worked really well for our Art Play Lab classes at Smudge. We cut simple icing shapes and cupcake bases, and often have a stack of patty pans ready to go as well (they’re perfect for leaning into the cupcake illusion).

There are a couple of lovely ways to run this, and they work just as well side by side.

One approach is classic marbling (the OG sensory process). Drop colour into the foam, swirl gently, then press the paper in. Scrape away the excess to reveal the pattern underneath. The smell, the sound, and the way the foam grows out of the can are part of the experience.

The other way is to build a foam-y cupcake. Place a patty pan directly onto the tray, fill it with shaving foam, and decorate it like you would a real cupcake. Drip liquid watercolour over the top, sprinkle on actual sprinkles (or sequins, sand, anything small and colourful), and swirl lightly. Once it looks good enough to eat, flip or squish it onto a paper cupcake shape, spread gently, then lift to reveal the print.

Another beautiful thing about this, is that the prints dry almost straight away! So the cupcake bases can be collaged, layered, drawn on or decorated whenever inspiration strikes.

Sweet Treat Still Life days at Smudge are always a bit special! Set up the still life like you’re styling a table you’d actually love to sit at. Cake stands, plates, boxes, stacked boards. Different heights really make all the difference, and try to leave a little breathing room between each treat (especially for younger kids) so that it's a bit simpler to see the form and shapes.

Gather the kids around the table. I just love the noses close, pointing things out, chatting about flavours and layers and who wants which slice later.

It's a good idea to keep the materials simple so that the artists can be comfortable with the medium, and focus on observing closely and drawing what they see. Oil pastels, watercolours, paint markers.

Start with oil pastel outlines. If you'd like to offer a little guidance, then try encouraging larger shapes first. It's also gorgeous when artists don't take their eyes off the cake, and trust their hands to sketch the shapes they see without looking at the page (or overthinking).

Bring in watercolour next. Loose washes, layering colour, letting things bleed a little. Oil pastel resists just enough to keep things grounded without becoming stiff. They might like to add in the table line and imagine a gorgeous design for the table cloth. Final details can be added once the paint dries.

Then the yummy part! Let them eat cake.