Kids Painting Ideas

Puffy paint is fun for kids, but there are many other types of fun painting projects too.  As always, be sure to monitor your children while they are painting and be sure to prepare the area so the children do not make a huge mess.  Check out some of these ideas!

Straw Painting

Children use a straw to blow paint onto paper to make neat designs.  Be careful, though, because this can get very messy!

Spray Painting

For this type of painting, you will need old spray bottles that you fill with different colors of paint that have been watered down.  Use these spray bottles to create paintings with many colors.  This is especially great on large sheets of paper.  Make sure you have a large area to work, and this also can be messy.  You may want to try this outside on the patio, sidewalk, or driveway.

Sponge Stamping

You can do this painting technique in two different ways.  First, you can buy rubber stamps and have the children dip them in paint and make stamp pictures.  The other option is to use kitchen sponges.  All you will need to do is to cut the kitchen sponges into shapes and sponge the paper with a variety of colors and shapes.

Paint Flicking

Use an old toothbrush or a paintbrush to flick paint onto a paper.  You can also hold a stick in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, and smacking the stick with the paintbrush causes the paint to fly off onto the paper.  I recommend covering the surface of the ground or table with plastic or newspaper before trying this technique because paint has a tendency to fly everywhere.

Symmetrical Painting

Children fold a paper in half.  Then paint on only one side of the fold.  When the painting is complete and before it has dried, fold the paper back in half so the paint is on the inside.  This will make a nice symmetrical painting.  It is also fun to try this with one half of the paper black so that children can see how paint looks on white paper versus black paper.

Leaf Outline Painting

For this project, collect some leaves and arrange them on a large sheet of paper.  Dip a sponge in paint and dab it around the edges of the leaves.  After you lift the leaves you will see neat outlines of the leaves remaining!

Bubble Painting

Mix some tempera paint into a bubble blowing mixture and put it into a dish like a pie tin.  For this activity, the fun is in the bubble blowing rather than in the painting.  Children can use a straw to blow bubbles and let them land on the paper.

Marble Painting

For this painting technique, you will need some marbles, a pie tin, tray, or container, and tempera paint.  First, cut construction paper so that it fits in the container you have chosen.  Next, drop some tempera paint on the paper.  Finally, roll the marbles into the container and roll them back and forth to create a streaky painting.

Crayon Resist Painting

For this painting technique, children first will use a white crayon to draw anything you want on a white piece of paper.  Then you can paint on top of the paper with watercolors or thinned paint and the crayon works as resistant to the paint so the parts without paint only will absorb the paint.