Painting with kids

I finally found time to craft today! but it was for the 5 and under crowd. Oh well, that's my life and I love it.

I'm going to share a simple fall painting project with you for kids and then a few tips for painting with kids.

Ready?

First we'll make a maple leaf print. This is a great way to help children learn that red and yellow make orange. 

Print or draw a maple leaf on a piece of paper and crease it down the middle of the leaf before you start painting. This will just make it easier to fold later on.

Next have your children paint it all yellow.

Then let them put dots, swirls, streaks, etc.. of red paint.

To finish it, just fold it in half and rub the back of it. To add in an extra element I let my kids rub the back of it with a plastic baby spoon. This was simply to make it more of a process for them.

Finally you open it up and your leaf will have beautiful fall colors.

This is a great project for all ages.  Today I did this with a 5,4, and 2 year old. I actually think the two year old's turned out the best and she did it completely by herself.

When we were done with that project, I still had a lot of tempera paint mixed up so I brought out the cookie cutters and let them do fall stamps using cookie cutters. Also a great project for any age. Well, I let Princess Newbie try it and she just wanted to eat the paint. That's ok.. we all eat a little glue, paint, dog food, etc.. along the way right? please tell me that I'm not the only one....

Tips for Painting with Kids

1. Add a little amount of dish soap to the paint. This will help the paint come out of any clothes or off of tables.
2. Save all the little plastic containers that you can such as butter tubs, marinara tubs, to go containers. Then you can use these to fill with paint for them. They are usually low and squatty which will lead to less spills and you can simply toss them when you're done. The faster you can clean up, the less time they have to do stuff while you're not watching. Not that my kids would EVER do that.
3. Use little foam brushes sometimes instead of paint brushes. It's a nice change for them and again since they are so cheap, they can just be tossed. I'm not on any environmentalists good side tonight, that's for sure.
4. Don't walk away from the table to refill your coffee. Little sisters start to look a lot like the paper after mommy's been gone for too long.
5. Invest in a few primary colors of powdered tempera. It's actually really cheap but comes in a huge jar. You can use it for so many projects. The nice thing about powdered tempera is that you can mix it to whatever consistency you want. Mix it thick for a paste to cover cardboard or use it really thin in a water gun (mixed with dish soap) and have a paint gun war, the old fashioned way. I just called that old fashioned and that's how we did it when I was in high school. Man I'm old.
6. Mix the colors from primary colors with kids.
7. don't worry about the end result. I have tried to make adorable things with them to serve a particular purpose but they have the most fun when they use every color possible and it looks more like an army tank than a Christmas ornament. It may matter to use but it does not to them! and that's what counts. My kids don't tell me how to do my art (most of the time) so I try not to tell them how to do theirs.

Have fun painting (the paper, not the baby sisters)