Painting Ideas To Trigger More Ideas
Every child is a born master in painting. It is just that they need the right trigger to get started. Once initiated, you will be stunned to see what they can come up with on their own.
You will also discover that there is a process to art. A wonderful way for children of all ages to engage, have fun and learn through play. Especially the little ones who are not as yet ready for kindergarten. But first a little about the natural love in children for colour, painting ideas and techniques.
The choice in colours is wide and unlimited, as, for painting ideas, you are limited only by your imagination. When it comes to painting techniques, you could use anything handy to paint –
a toothbrush pointed edges of an earbud or children could even use their own palms dipped
in colour.
Here are a few proven ways that can get children involved, excited and start their journey into the world of art on the right foot.
Simple Painting Styles
CONNECT THE BLOBS CHALLENGE: With an earbud in hand, scoop up a blob of colour. Close your eyes and drop a blob on a paper. Keep adding more blobs of different colours randomly. Once you feel there are enough number of different coloured blobs, invite your child. Give her a hint about what to do — Connect the blobs, mix the colours or use the blobs as a palette. Engage in a great way to build concentration and fine motor skills while she will end up creating beautiful artwork. As this is all about the process, emphasize that she could do whatever comes to her mind with the blobs of paint. Get her creativity flowing!
LETTING GRAVITY PAINT: What goes up, must come down. But why? In any case, this will be a fun STEM activity for children to experience gravity in action using paints and paper tilted at different angles. Pour different colours of paint into each cup. Dilute it to make sure it’s thin enough to “run” when applied to the paper. Use an eyedropper to drop a few drops of colour onto the surface of the paper. Tilt the paper in different directions, and see where the paint goes until the paper or board is covered with unique drips. This activity will promote creative thinking and bring gravity to life through a painting!
LET A YARN TELL A STORY: Toddlers and paint sometimes don’t mix, but that is not the case with yarn painting! This activity for toddlers is exciting, engrossing and great fun, as well as helps a child to focus their attention for longer and longer periods. It is a sensory-rich experience for children and allows them to not only create different textured paint surfaces but also lets them use different colours to tell their textured stories. While you can do yarn painting with any kind of paint, try using watercolours instead. It is less messy.
POINTILLISM TO MAKE A POINT: Easy to set up an art project to introduce Georges Seurat & Impressionism to children. Seurat’s unique pointillist technique allows very subtle tonal gradation shimmer, interpreting optical theories of colour relationships in a manner not done before. Children will find this technique stimulating and discover a simple way to create a lasting impact. Understanding the concepts of colour theory and the use of colour by placing beside each other strategically to complement and make them work together.
Fun Painting Techniques
SPIN A PAINTING: Discover wacky ways to create gorgeous masterpieces with your child using everyday household items. The process improves hand/arm muscles and coordination! As this painting activity uses a salad spinner, invite your child to cut out a circular paper or better still, trim a paper plate to fit into the bottom of the spinner. Now get her to choose the colours and go about squirting paint randomly onto the paper plate, using an eyedropper. Get her to place the lid and spin using the handle. The spin painting process develops and improves the fine and gross motor skills of children. To successfully spin the salad spinner, you need focus and a developed hand/eye coordination.
ROLLING A MARBLE TO PAINT: Marble painting has been around for over 1000 years, with superb examples from Turkey and Japan. It is known as ‘suminagashi’ in Japanese. Give it a try. Lay a broadsheet of white paper in a tray. Put drops of paint on the paper randomly. Place a few marbles on the tray and begin rolling them around until you are happy with the look of the painting. Let it dry. You may think marble painting is weird, but the one done by Jackson Pollock sold for a whopping $58.4 million dollars! Who can tell, your child may create a masterpiece one day. While it may not fetch a million dollars, she will feel like a million bucks when you proudly display it on the living room wall!
CAR TRACK PAINTING: Who needs paint brushes to paint? Try rolling the wheels of a toy car through a puddle of paint. In this fun art activity, kids use toy cars to paint colourful lines and create unique patterns on paper. The grooves on the wheels create lines that look just like real car tracks! Add another activity. Prepare a tub of water where their cars can be washed. This will surely be a hit with kids and provides them with an opportunity to help out with the
clean-up.
WAX RESIST ART: Watercolour resist artworks are fun to do and make wonderful to give as gifts. This childhood classic project surprises children of all ages every time they watch wax will repelling water. The safest wax for children to use is a non-toxic crayon. Draw an outline of a fish and a simple brushstroke of watercolour paint over crayon waxline can make art appear magical.
SALTY MAGIC: This is one art activity that never grows out of style. It never fails to amaze children as they watch the watercolour traverse along salt-covered glue lines. Adding watercolours to this salt drop by drop makes the snowflakes on paper just pop out! Children simply love how vibrant and crystallized salt painted snowflake looks.
Like the rainy weather, frequent lockdowns have also become unpredictable. Which makes it the perfect time for some energetic art activity to bring back some fun into our everyday life. If you have never tried painting before, now is the time to try different ways to experiment with creativity and produce some beautiful artworks. At Abrakadoodle we do that each day with children who get into the groove and learn through play to enjoy process art.
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