Painting with Children
A Semi-Brief Guide
The above painting was done using acrylic paints, approximately 35 x 23 inches, and was completed in two hours. Space, my 4.5 year old son named it. He said the circle at the bottom left is, “Earth a long time ago when it was all just being made, and the red drips are heaps of volcanos and the blue ones are the oceans.”
The Mess
For large scale paintings I have used both the living floor and the patio outside. I actually prefer the living room because the hardwood has more of a grace period for cleaning off acrylics than the concrete pavers (which seem to soak up paint and leave an instant stain).
A drop cloth is essential: I use an old king sized duvet cover (essentially two layers of sheet).
Everything goes on the drop cloth.
Glass and wood palettes for thicker paints, plastic containers for mixtures thinned with water. A plastic tray holds paint brushes and other implements; paper towels are also beside each painter in a convenient place to set wet brushes when inspiration strikes and they need to quickly switch to a different tool.
Other supplies I keep close at hand: A plastic container filled with water for cleaning brushes, a spare roll of paper towels, a container of baby wipes.
The Paint
I use a variety of acrylics, in both student and artist grade, depending on what I have around. Part of my son’s delight in this style of painting is that he gets to use my ‘special’ art supplies that he isn’t allowed to play with in normal circumstances, consequently, they get accorded extra respect.
In addition to my normal acrylics, in the above painting we also used Liquitex and Golden’s liquid acrylics. Squeezing the bottles high in the air and making drips, then tilting the painting to watch them race and run was my son’s favorite part of the process.
Tools
We did a lot of sponge texture in this one, also some wadded cheese cloth, and scratching with palette knives and toothpicks. I have a large white-washing paint brush with some massive stiff bristles that gives a nice speckle texture and we hammered that on with abandon. Paint brushes themselves were limited mostly to the underpainting.
Technique
Step 1: Choose Your Palette
To begin, my son and I spend some time discussing color options and testing our ideas on printer paper. Let the kids mix as well. Start talking about how when some colors mix they loose their vibrancy and turn to mud. Experiment. Paint your final color choices on a clean piece of paper and label them with any mixing notes for later reference.
If you’re worried about mud, choose colors that play nice together. Oranges and yellows and reds. Or blues and greens. Or reds and blues. Think about the tones. A red that leans toward the purple spectrum rather than orange will blend beautifully with blue. I normally pick at least one contrasting color, for aesthetics and so we can work at learning to discern when mud strikes. However, when my son was younger I did a similar style painting with him and deliberately chose colors that would look good even with excessive mixing. The main color was bright lime green (permanent green light, or something like that, I think), with access to a smaller amount of cool yellow, and white. At the very end I gave him an almost empty tube of dark forest green and he got some squirts out from that which added a nice value contrast.
Step 2: Underpainting
Pick two or three colors from your palette (I normally choose bright colors), thin them heavily so they go on as a wash, then paint them on the canvas in large blocks of color. Talk about what happens when the washes mix on the canvas. Look at the results. Talk about everything. Figure out which ones make mud and which don’t.
Once your canvas is coated (dont’ forget the edges!) get out the blow dryer and dry it if it’s still wet. The wash will dry quickly so it shouldn’t take much.
Step 3: The Painting Proper
Prepare the paint colors you decided on. For this painting I wanted to minimize mixing in favor of more spontaneity, so most of the colors are either straight from the tube or mixed by association on the canvas. The only exception is the turquoise, which I mixed in a tub (phthalo turquoise and a lot of titanium white).
We start by experimenting with textures. How does the sponge look? What happens when I sponge blue on top of purple? If one color seems to be dominating too much, I will suggest trying another color, “What would happen if we put a whole bunch of yellow over there?” Or I might start drawing patterns in the wet paint with toothpicks, or pull out the liquid acrylics and ask if he wants to make drips. If an area is beginning to become overmixed, I point it out and we talk about what colors were blended in that spot, then we might test out how to paint with those colors and not turn it to mud.
Step 4: Finishing
Having a defined end time is another trick that can help keep the painting from getting overworked. Ours is when the toddler wakes from her nap — then it’s a mad rush to clear everything from the floor before she comes out and finds heaven spread on a duvet before her.
For this session, Oliver volunteered to entertain her while I got the essentials off the floor. Five minutes later, I heard screaming from the bedroom. I went in to find Annabel in her crib with Oliver nowhere to be seen.
A moment later banging erupted on the closet door. I open it.
There was Oliver and his delighted grin. “I don’t know what happened! I just couldn’t get out of this cave!”
Reality, I could see, had once again vanished. I laughed with him, then, toddler on my hip, went to brave the living room.
Let me know if you decide to try this, I’d love to see other people’s results!
