art projects for kids Archives

With Sam not feeling well earlier today, we decided to spend our afternoon close to home and out of the sun. I love setting little play invitations out for the kids to discover after school, but since I hadn’t gotten a chance to set something up during nap time, I quickly pulled together a classic while Grae and Sam devoured their afternoon snacks… Magic mystery painting! {An absolute childhood classic if you’re old like me – hah!}

{this post contains affiliate links}

Now I have to preface this all with the fact that I wasn’t planning on sharing any of this here, so didn’t pull out my big camera like I should have… hence the cell phone photos. Not ideal, but meh.

Here’s what you’ll need:

a white pastel
watercolour paper*
watercolour paints**
paintbrushes (I love these and these)

* Other thick, absorbent papers will work too, but watercolour paper can soak up a ton of paint without sogging up and ripping and it dries flat.

** Any type will do, but we love our Sax liquid watercolours and I think they’re PERFECT for this project… They make it super easy for little ones to get a brush full of paint (just dip and go) and they’re super washable. We used just a few drops of liquid watercolours diluted in small cups of water.

Okay, so here’s how easy this is… First, use the white pastel to draw simple pictures, lines, and designs all over your watercolour paper. Two things to keep in mind… 1) Solid, thick pastel lines make for the best end result, so be sure to use lots of pressure when drawing and 2) your kiddos don’t care what your drawings look like whatsoever, so don’t let the fact that “you can’t draw” stop you from doing this… Just really go for it!

Here’s how I set it out for Grae and Sam… My white pastel drawings on a giant page of watercolour paper, plus little jars of Sax liquid watercolours diluted in water right on top. Oh, and paintbrushes too, of course!

I had already told Grae and Sam that this activity involved something magical / mysterious, so they wasted no time getting to painting once I told them it was ready to go.

And they were totally wowed. (Even though Miss G’s done this loads of times… The resist part is fun, but it’s uncovering the hidden drawings that makes this activity so fun and engaging.)

Part way through they decided that they’d try to paint the entire surface so as not to miss a single drawing or design, which I thought was very clever!

When they were mostly done, I encouraged them to go in and add more paint – a) because the paper can handle it and b) because it allowed them to explore colour mixing.

Isn’t their piece beautiful?! Plus, when you have kiddos with a 5-year age gap, the very best thing is finding activities they both enjoy and can do alongside one another.

When they were done with the first one, Miss G asked if she could create a second one full of things Sam loves… And I mean, how can you say no to that, right? So while she worked on her version, Sam whipped her up a snack of toast, carrot, ice cream, and pancake.