What To Do With Your Child's Artwork: Painting

We do a lot of open ended painting in our house. Both girls enjoy just smearing and mixing paint on paper. It is a wonderful tactile experience. But what do you do with all those wonderful creations?

Let them dry and when they want to paint again have them paint on some of their old paintings. First it saves paper and second it makes for a colorful and bold painting.

When painting on top of another painting use a dark color paint so it stands out. Or conversely if the background paint is very dark have them use white or a light color to paint with.

The top picture is a leopard and the bottom is a lion.

For more ideas of what to do with your children's artwork click here.

Edit: If you find that you don't paint with your kiddos because you are worried about paint getting everywhere! Then take advantage of the warm weather and take your painting outside. Just hose your kiddos off afterwards. Make sure you use washable paint. :-) Finding large paper a problem? Try having your kids paint a paper grocery bag that has been opened up flat or a cardboard box opened up flat. I even give my kids mini rollers (I had for trim work.) They just love that! Have fun crafting with your kids!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Open ended art with the boys ends up with a lot of paint on faces and bodies. It's more body art than open end art ;o)

Kristin said...

Very excellent idea!!! Thanks for sharing.

Nadia said...

that is a great idea! :)
definately want to do that, i have so many old paintings lying around that im not really sure what to do.. this will add another dimension to it

Beth- the mama bee said...

great idea... simple, yet brillant :)

Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog said...

Oh my goodness, it's like twice the artwork on half the paper! I love it!!

We love painting outside too, and you're right it does make clean up much easier!

Michelle said...

Great tip!! We also love turning artwork into cards and wrapping paper.

Sara said...

I also love this idea! It teaches about recycling while also seeing new beauty in older work!

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