Painting on Paper Towels and an Opportunity for Mama to Practice Allowing the Toddler to Create his Own Art!

I love using different materials for painting. Kitchen paper towels are great for mixing colours and watching it spread over the patterns. So one lovely warm afternoon, I thought it would be fun to paint on the balcony. We headed out with kitchen roll, watered down paint, some brushes and a few other items to play with. I was looking forward to watching some abstract art develop, but the art was not what I had expected.

Our Equipment

Paint Mixed with Water

For a change of angle, I hung the paper squares from a piece of string tied between two chairs. Glass jars held the paint and we had extra pots around for mixing. 

Hanging Paper Towels

I was pleased with the arrangement and looking forward to seeing what B would do and the art he would produce.

He loved the colours in glass pots and having more pots to pour into. I had also put a large bucket of water outside so he made more and more and more (mess!).

Pouring

Poking

Splashing

He went on and on and on. Pouring, splashing, mixing all the paints into different tubs. But what about the paper? My wonderful hanging arrangement was being ignored! I really wanted him to try splashing the paint onto the paper, or flicking it, or dripping it, anything.

More mixing

More colours

However, he was having so much fun, I didn’t want to interrupt him. I hate to break his concentration.

Concentrating on pouring carefully

After a while I splashed a little paint on the paper myself. "Look at this," I said. He said, “hmm” and carried on with what he was doing. So I left him to it. The cars got involved as usual. And everything ended up in the bucket at some point. 

Paper Towels Empty of Art

Mixed Colours on the Floor

So even though it wasn’t the painting activity I had envisioned, he enjoyed a long afternoon playing with water and created some interesting patterns on the floor. I was disappointed that he didn't share my enthusiasm about the hanging paper, but he did:

• Mix colours over and over to discover more colours
• Pour liquid carefully, and sometimes not so carefully, into different pots
• Step over and around things as he moved around the area
• Explore the fundamentals of volume as he tipped paint from one pot to another

More Painting with Cars

Our first painting with cars activity was a brilliant success. B added more and more paint to the masterpiece each time we came back to it and discovered new ways to move the cars, the paint and himself. It was also a great way to explore colours. Just before we washed the plasic canvas, we went a little crazy with the paint.

On this day, he chose red and green paint. As we sat down with our equipment - paint, cars and plasic sheet - I asked spontaneously: would you like to sqeeze the paint bottle? Well, of course yes. Normally I do that part, but I thought it would be a nice change for him and I was right.

The Big Squeeze of Paint

It was lovely to see him so focussed on getting paint out, and I was so busy taking photos, that I forgot to say stop! 

We ended up with a huge blob of red paint which he drowned his cars in.

Car completely covered in paint

Some wonderful tracks made by cars

Often, he doesn’t like to get too messy, but once all his cars were drenched, and his hands covered, and after he slipped and we laughed so much, he didn’t seem to mind. 

The big blue bus always gets a look in

A terrible accident? Only with a bottle of paint

And then it was time for a slide

The clean up was a family effort. We carried all paint covered items, including a messy toddler, outside to be cleaned off with hot soapy water. And so the fun continued. It took a while, but soon everything was clean enough, and B dry enough to come inside to hunt for footprints and dots of red paint on the floor. With a wet wipe in hand he managed to remove most of it. (Aren’t  wet wipes fantastic for this sort of thing?) The activity took up the whole morning and we were more than ready for a long midday rest.

B had a wonderful time painting with his favourite toys and built on the skills he had started when we first did this activity. I hope that he was able to connect his ideas and stories as we didn't clean his 'canvas' between sessions.

Painting with Cars

It’s always all about the cars, and then the bus gets involved and then the train shows up. No matter what we do, something with wheels either accompanies us or distracts us. So one day, to avoid distraction, we painted with cars. It was a huge success. It created an interesting piece of art too.

We have a large plastic table cloth, around 1 by 1.5 meters, which we have been using for a long time for just about anything. We like to work on the floor and this large white water-resistant mat has been our canvas for paint, play dough, colouring, cutting, water play and more. On this day it really was our canvas, and I also discovered that the pizza boxes I had thought perfect for painting on were just too small. This boy thinks big and needs a lot of space.

So, with one plastic sheet, paint and a few vehicles, he was off.

First he assigned two colours to each vehicle...

and then watched the paint move and mix as the buses travelled.

 I gave him one rule: Stay on the mat.

There were some amazing patterns in the tracks. He just kept on going round and round and round.

With cars, colours and a clear limit he was happy to make a creative mess. I left him to it.

This is the finished picture.

A few days later we added more paint (and a few more cars!):

The next time he asked if he could stand in the paint. He had a wonderful time ‘ice skating’ across his painting.

(Pic to come)

We plan to keep adding and adding to it.
So, what was the benefit of this mess?

• Practicing lots of fine and gross motor skills
• Watching colours mix and mix again
• Observing the effect of an solid object moved through liquid
• Enjoying creating a big piece of art with his most beloved vehicles

Painting in a Tub

We got more than we bargained for with this project, all mixed up with a lot of fun.We played with paint yet didn't get too messy, we talked a lot about colours and what we expected to happen, and we moved around all over the place.

I saw some great pictures on teaching 2 and 3 year olds of kids rolling a huge can around the room. Inside was paint and golf balls. We get yogurt in one litre plastic tubs from the supermarket and always have too many table tennis balls lying around, add paper and paint, then I just had to hunt down the scissors to cut the paper down to size. We quickly had a mini version of the one I had seen. I love anything with such simple preparation.

He chose blue and white for the first colours. Once everything was sealed tightly in the tub, we rolled it around the floor. Then we threw it, kicked it, bounced it (this got lots of giggles), spun it, and he sat on it before opening it up to see the surprise.

The balls matched the paper with an interesting mottled pattern which impressed us both. He immediately wanted to have another go. We ended up with all the colours in the tub and beautifully decorated table tennis balls.

These are things we did that B benefited from:

• Measuring the paper to make it fit in the tub
• Choosing which colours to squeeze in and what effect the might have
• Pushing the lid on tightly
• Moving the tub around in different ways and talking about what it was doing
• Expectation of a result and comparing that to what we saw
• Experiencing transference of liquid onto different surfaces
• Practicing handling tricky objects (paint covered ping pong balls)

So what I thought was just going to be throwing around a tub full of paint actually turned out to be an opportunity for extended conversation and practicing numerous movements. And we loved the final products.

Paint Bags

My son is going through a phase of not liking messy hands. My image of enjoying crazy painting, gooey play and sticky craft with my two year old has been shattered. It is also making me think differently about crafts and how to make it fun for him - not just for me!

We tried using ziplock bags for mixing paint and enjoyed it, until the bag developed a hole. However, my son seemed a little disappointed about not having something to keep at the end.

As it is Spring, most of the craft ideas I see are about flowers and butterflies. These are things he likes, but what he really loves is vehicles. So I cut three pieces of card to fit three bags, drew a (very basic) picture of a car, a bus and a train on them and we were ready to go.

The first bag, the car, got all the colours sqeezed in - red, blue, yellow and white. The second was only given blue as it was a train and that is what colour Thomas is! We didn't get round to doing the bus. We did them one at a time, pressing down on the paint so it spread across the picture. The colours on the car didn't mix quite as much as I had hoped, but the effect was interesting as we cut open the bag and pulled the plastic away. The paint on the train soaked right into the cardboard showing the pattern underneath.

Sometimes I think he enjoys preparing the activities more than doing them. He talked a lot about the measuring and cutting, and then was quiet during the spreading of the paint. I have to really hold my tongue to stop myself telling him what to do. I always have an idea what I want to achieve but have to remind myself that it is his actions and not the finished work that counts!

Some things we achieved:

• talking about size and shape when cutting the cardboard to fit in the bags
• discussing different vehicles that he wanted me to draw, and parts of the vehicles
• choosing colours for the vehicles and how much paint to put in the bag
• using fingers and palms to move the paint around
• learning about colours mixing and liquid moving
• I had practice in not telling him how to make his art

The results are pretty good and look interesting on the wall. It's a really simple and quick activity. I was disappointed that we couldn't see the pictures well underneath the paint, but maybe we can find a solution to that through a brain-storming session beforehand, hmm. It's something we can do often and find different techniques.

Coloured Foam

I had read a few things about shaving foam and the benefits of using it as a new sensory experience. It's fun, interesting and clean. So I jumped on the band wagon and bought some. We had fun squishing it, blowing it, throwing it around and painting our faces with it. Then I decided to make a cloud jar. There are also some good pictures here.

The suggestion was to use food colouring and pipets, but as usual, we didn't have these things. I collected:

• empty jam jars
• shaving foam
• paint watered down in an old ice cube tray
• a plastic syringe from a fever medicine bottle
• water
• lots of newspaper

all of which was on a kids table on our plastic craft sheet that I'd layed on the floor. B doesn't like to make a big mess, but the risk of spills was high.

I expected excitement at the foam in the jar, interest in the paint as it hit the foam, comments about the water changing colour. So, reminding myself to stay quiet and let him do the work, I watched with baited breath for the result.

The excitement I felt was not matched by B's! He was so concentrated on using the syringe to get all the paint out of the ice cube tray and make it shoot through the foam that the colours mixing and foam changing was put in on the sideline. However, he worked his hands well during the 30 minutes this activity took, and he enjoyed gaining expertise in paint sucking and shooting! I'll have to find more things to do with the tray and syringe that don't involve aiming it around the room!