I received a lot of interest and questions about the latest painting Logan made for our playroom. For anyone who wants to try this with their kids, here’s a breakdown of how it was done.
Materials: stretched canvas, acrylic paint, brushes, bucket of water
*NOTE: Acrylic paint does not come out of clothes so I recommend using messy clothes or having your kid paint in their underwear.
- Lay the canvas on the floor and let your kid pick one color. Help them pour some paint directly onto the canvas & let them go nuts.
2. Let your kid pick a second color of paint and either let them pour the paint on the canvas or ask where they want you to pour it. Let them paint with those two colors as much as they want.
3. Leave the painting to dry. Acrylic dries pretty fast so this shouldn’t take more than 30 mins (unless they really poured the paint on thick, then it might take an hour) Take this time to clean your brushes.
4. Once the first layer is dry, remind your child of where the painting is going to be and ask them what colors they would like to see up on the wall in that room. Then together, decide where the next color should go. This time, pour less paint on than you did for the first layer. Repeat with one or two more colors.
5. Let the painting dry. I know it can be hard for kids to wait, but painting outside in our yard helped with this because Logan could play on his tricycle, help me clean the brushes, water the plants or take a snack break.
6. Once that layer is dry, pick a new color to paint with. I chose white so there would be more contrast. You can see we actually didn’t wait long enough and the white mixed with some of the other colors. Logan liked that, so we rolled with it. If at any point the whole painting turns to one muddy color don’t worry! Let it dry and paint right over it on the next layer.
7. Throughout this process whether it looked like Logan was actually listening to me or not, I just kept talking about the color combinations he was making and what colors popped out to me and what would look so cool hanging up in our playroom. I constantly had him take little water breaks to step back from the painting and look at it.
8. At one point Logan asked me to paint with him and he actually told me what to do. My contribution was the light pink dots…
9. Which he ended up painting over and then having me repaint in a different place later.
10. Repeat this process of drying and painting and stepping back and talking about the colors, the composition, the types of paint strokes. Anything you notice, talk about it! Ask if there are any colors missing, make suggestions if you want. If your child is anything like mine, they will not take a suggestion they don’t like 🙂 Keep going until your child (or both of you) decide it is ready to hang.
11. Hang it up!
Logan is so incredibly proud of his painting! We love the new colorful addition to our home. Best of luck on yours! Send me a pic if you decide to try it. Logan will be so excited to see!
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