Setting up an Open-ended Art Area

I recently read a great post about open-ended art here. And setting up an area for M to create whatever he wants has been on my mind a lot lately. He's been painting and gluing since he was able to sit up by himself, so I'm not too worried about him making messes (and in the kitchen or outside the mess is pretty easy to clean up) but I'm not sure how to put it all together in our tiny home, or what should be included.

Right now he was a lap tray that we call his "desk" in a corner of the living room. Here he has a sketch pad of plain white paper, some coloring books (recent additions since he just started being interested in them), a bucket of crayons and colored pencils, some construction paper scraps, scissors, a glue stick, and a small container of the pieces he's cut up from the construction paper, as well as some stickers. He did make some collages at first, but he is not a big fan of the glue stick. He is a glue bottle kind of guy. Squeezing the glue is a huge part of the fun for him. Obviously that can't be done in the living room, or I might turn into the crazy-mama-who-yells. ;)

In the kitchen he has an art easel with a drawer. One side has a white board. We normally keep peices of newsprint up on that side, held in place with magnets. His markers are here, more stickers, chalk for the chalkboard on the other side, and more magnets. He makes several drawings here daily.


When he paints it's usually outside on his homemade easel, or inside at the table, doing something I've set up for him - open-ended or crafty. However, I like the idea of him being able to do it on his own whenever he wants. *But* I like the set up we have now because it works for us. So, I'm going to try having a container of other supplies - more paper, glue (in a bottle), less-messy paints like his do-a-dot painters and roll-on painters, tissue paper, scissors, etc. Having it in a container means I can set it out in the morning and he can do what he wants with it, then I can take it off at dinner time or whenever we don't want it out. I plan on trying this some time soon, hopefully one day this week if I can get myself organized in time.


I'd love to hear from anyone who has other suggestions for what to keep in our art container. Am I adding too much? Should I rotate items in some way? Do you have a place in your home where your children can create whenever they want? How is it set up in your home? Have you posted on your blog about this topic? If so, leave the link in the comments section - I'd love to read them!


We will still try to do (almost) daily art projects and may take part, once in a while, in this "open-ended art carnival" that a reader introduced me to.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Art time! Chalk and Paint

We have this wonderful, wonderful book - Scribble Art by Mary Ann Kohl.

It is full of great ideas for art. Most of it is open-ended art, focusing on the process not the product. That's hard for me sometimes; I do like me a good craft every now and then. :) However, I have seen with M that he seems to get the most enjoyment (and is occupied the longest, which is always a plus for the mama) with simple art. Painting, glueing, drawing, building, sculpting, etc. With no end product in mind, just the enjoyment of... art.

Today we tried a project in the book that we haven't tried before. It sounded really neat: dip colored chalk in white paint and draw on black paper. It is supposed to outline the chalk with white. Well, for the first time, I was disappointed by a suggestion in this book. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say maybe we just didn't do it correctly, or maybe M needs to be a bit older to have it turn out like it's supposed to.

He seemed to think he should paint with the chalk, instead of draw with it. So he didn't press down on it really, and not much chalk showed up on the paper.

Here is a picture of it finished and hanging up to dry:

I think we'll try something similar some other time - dipping chalk in water or liquid starch and drawing on black paper. The chalk by itself looked pretty on the paper, and getting it wet might enhance the color a bit.

I have to say, M's opinion was a bit different though - he loves his finished artwork and when it dries he wants to hang it in his room. :) And of course we will.

If you try this and it turns out better, let me know. I'd love to see some pictures!

Have a beautiful day (even if it doesn't turn out like you wanted)!

Waterpainting Outside

Here's a very simple project we did yesterday. I used our outdoor easel and set up a cup of water and some watercolor paints for M. He kept saying "We're painting outside, Mommy!" Which was a little strange since this was certainly not the first time we've painted outside. Oh well, the mind of a toddler is a mystery sometimes. He also kept saying "This is art, Mommy, not for the birdies to eat." And again, I say, the mind of a toddler...

Here's how it turned out:

The more vivid areas are from him dipping his finger into the water and then into a color and fingerpainting onto the paper. It turned out pretty nice, I think. I hope the birdies don't want to eat it!

Have a beautiful day! ;)

do-a-dot artwork

Yesterday we were all out of it... sick and feverish and completely lifeless... well, at least my husband and I. Matthew, on the other hand, was sick and feverish, yet somehow still managed to have a little energy for fun. It must be nice to be 2 years old.

He asked to do art first thing in the morning. My initial reaction was to say no because I just didn't feel like taking the time to set something up for him and then clean up (especially this) after him.

However, a little later I had an idea, and it turned out to be a good one too. Funny how that actually works out sometimes. He does not paint with his Do-A-Dot painters very often, as he prefers the messier tempera paints that he can run his little cars through. But he also likes to spray water out of my misting bottle. So... here's what we did:

I put a couple of layers of newsprint down then some papertowels on top (I left 2 paper towels attached to each other). Matthew made dots all over and then sprayed them with the water bottle. He had a great time doing this. It did make a little mess as he apparently decided to spray the whole table and the walls at some point, but dotting and spraying kept him busy for a good half hour if not more. And that was a blessing for all of us.

It actually turned out quite beautiful. The papertowels absorbed the water and caused the paints to bleed. You could do this with coffee filters or tissue paper too, I think. I'm not sure what we'll do with these; I'm thinking about laminating them with contact paper and turning them into placemats.

All in all, it turned out to be a fun and pretty spur-of-the-moment art project.

Have a beautiful day! ;)

A Little Summer Painting

Matthew has loved painting since he could sit upright in his highchair. I know painting with small children is stressful for some parents, but it is sooo much fun and, in my opinion, the benefits far outweigh the hassle of preparing and cleaning up.

Summer time is the perfect time for letting toddlers paint. Just bring it outside! Fill a little wading pool nearby, use washable tempera paints, and you are good to go. Put them in their little swim diaper or swimsuit, give them a brush and a piece of paper and watch what they create.


I made this handy little outdoor easel and paint tray in less than 15 minutes. Take a large box - this one was an old diaper box. Cut off the two side panels (the small ends). Then flip the box inside out and duct tape it into a triangle shape:
Set it up on a low bench or chair out in the grass, and use a large rock or two to hold it down by placing them inside the triangle. Use masking tape to attach a large piece of paper. We almost always use freezer paper as it is shiny on one side, which is great for fingerpainting, and matte on the other side, which is great for just about everything else.

For the paint tray, I used a small 6-cup muffin tin. Originally I planned to just save the paint in it and add more as needed. However, this particular one started to rust (it was from the dollar store, so I'm not sure if that would happen with all of them, or those that are coated). So now we use small plastic tubs from individual size apple sauce and I attached them to the muffin cups with tacky putty - the kind you use to hang posters, etc. Cleaning them is super easy, though to be honest, we don't really clean them up very often. I just cover everything with aluminum foil and we bring them out whenever we want to paint. If the paint has thickened a little bit, just add a little water, or a little more paint and mix it up. It's easy for a toddler to use because the weight of the muffin pan keeps the paint stable while they dip the brushes in. Regular cups are easy to tip over, but we've used this for a few months now and haven't had a single spill! We have another one that we use for liquid watercolors, and it works just as well.

So go paint with your kids! And have a beautiful day! ;)