pssst. Dads, partners of mamas and lovely friends planning to make a little something for a special mama this Mother’s Day, I have a question. Have your little ones created their gift yet? If they haven’t, fear not! Today I’m sharing a quick and easy painting technique that will see your little one create an abstract masterpiece while having a bucketload of fun – a lovely gift for Mother’s Day! This painting technique is summed up in two words – splatter painting – and kids absolutely love it!
Before we get into the how to, this art activity comes with a warning. Splatter painting for kids is messy, and I mean MESSY. When the kids get into making their masterpiece, the paint will fly, and I mean FLY. I would suggest you pop down a decent sized drop cloth, like an old double or queen sized bed sheet, to catch the mess and have the little ones pop on an art smock or clothes that you don’t mind getting paint on.
Splatter painting is a technique where you throw paint at the canvas without the brush actually touching it and the paint moves in its own way as it hits the canvas. It’s great fun for kids who will love seeing how big a splat they can make or how far they can get paint to splatter across the canvas. Naturally all of the paint won’t stay on the canvas as it bounces on impact, and those splatters when they’re trying to shoot across the canvas are when you’ll be especially glad if you popped that drop cloth down!
What you’ll need
– paint in different colours; we chose peach, pink, gold, black and white
– a palette for mixing, if your little ones like to make custom colours
– a container of water
– canvas
– paintbrushes; we used a big one for the background and a smaller one for the splatters
What you’ll do
Step one: paint the background of your canvas – we used the larger brush for this and painted with all colours except for black in a criss-cross pattern until the canvas was covered.
Step two: dip the smaller paintbrush in a paint colour then dip it into the water. Without squeezing or tapping any of the excess water out, bring the paintbrush over the canvas and splatter the paint. To do this you can either tap the brush with your free hand, do a quick flick of the wrist or throw the colour like you’re casting a fishing line.
Step three: repeat step two using different colours until you’ve reach the desired effect. For our painting, we splattered gold, white, black and two shades of grey made using the black and white paints.
The final step is to stand back and admire your artwork as it dries. Fun, right?!
Happy creating!
We’d love to see your little one’s masterpiece, so feel free to use our Instagram hashtag #tinyandlittleart to share and we’ll stop by for a peek!