I did this project with my 8-13 year old kids around Halloween. We used thick and thin permanent black markers to draw and color the spooky houses. We were sure to make our houses look wonky with slanted sides and windows for that creepy, abandoned house feel. We went for variety in our windows, creating different sizes and styles, and added lots of little details on our roofs like spires, weather-vanes, cats, chimneys and spider webs. At the foreground we added graves, carved pumpkins, fences, etc.
The sky, path and interior window lights were painted with liquid marker ink, which I saved from dried markers. Simply place your dried markers, uncapped and felt tip down, in a jar of water and let soak for a day - you will have beautiful marker ink that you can use for painting. The moon was simply drawn with round tracer and left unpainted, though you could paint it in with white acrylic paint.
These turned out so beautifully spooky and with such great contrast. The marker ink has a way of cauliflowering when it dries on the paper, which creates interesting texture, and adds to the night-time, spooky feel.
