Hand And Footprint Art: 4 Fun Steps

Creating paintings with bare hands is fun. Doing it with the family makes it even more meaningful. So let your imagination run and get the whole family’s hands on it!  Here are some tips…

What is the origin of hand and footprint art?

A certain study found that hand and footprint art started way back 169,000 to 226,000 years ago. Earliest Parietal Art: Hominin Hand and Foot Traces from the Middle Pleistocene of Tibet,” published Dec. 30, 2021, in Science Bulletin. One hint can be found in the fact that the findings include handprints. Human footprints are common, but handprints are much less common. Tibetan panels are a manifestation of an immobile art tradition typified by hand stenciling on cave walls, or parietal art. Among the oldest examples of this type of art are those found in the El Castillo cave in Spain and the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. With the Tibetan cave paintings discovered in Tibet, the Chauvet cave paintings in France, which date back about 30,000 years, seem practically modern.

The origin of the art panel was determined through uranium-series dating. Approximately 7 or 12 years old is believed to be the age of the children who made the footprints and handprints. Nevertheless, the species of these people is more critical than their age. Could they have been Homo sapiens? Are there extinct hominins? Denisovans, a mysterious group related to Neanderthals, are thought to have inhabited the plateau, according to recent skeletal remains discovered there. Their exact identities may never be known, it is considered that this type of art originated from the Tibetan Plateau.

Several institutions funded the work, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Early Career Scheme.

What are the materials needed to create hand and footprint art?

You’ll be needing the following materials to create hand and footprint art.

• Canvas
• Acrylic Paints
• Brush
• Permanent Marker
• Plastic Plate

How to create hand and footprint art?

The first thing you need to do is to make sure your kids are in the mood for some arts and crafts time :)

1. Squeeze out the paint on a thick plate

Squeeze out the paint of your choice on the plate and use a brush.

2. Apply the paint to both hands and feet

Put some on your child’s hand or foot and ask them to press nicely on the canvas.

3. Apply the paint to the canvass using the hands & feet

If you will be using both hands or/and feet, apply paint and press on the canvas one at a time so that it does not get too messy.

Don’t step on the canvas – especially if you are a grown-up! Sit – or get your child to lie down – instead, and have an adult carefully press the canvas onto your foot, pressing each toe to make sure you get a nice print.

4. Let it dry

Let the paint dry and, depending on your design, use permanent markers to add more details and text.

You can also do this art for making birthday and holiday cards and letters. Here are some ideas to help you think of your design:

Take a look at more ideas for this hand and footprint art ideas through our album below for inspiration. :)

Click on any image to start the lightbox display. Use your Esc key to close the lightbox.

If you liked this project, you might also like to view DIY Sand Footprint Keepsakes and Salt Dough Foot Print Heart…