Painting Ideas for Kids with 50 Tools, Methods & Recipes

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Tap into your child’s artistic side with easy painting ideas for kids! Your child will love exploring and creating with paint.

There are so many painting ideas for kids! Painting is such a staple for art activities with most kids.

Painting is often the first exposure children have to art. Which isn’t surprising.

There are a million different ways to paint!

It’s time to be creative with the kids in a way you’ve never been before!

Even though kids love painting, it can become mundane for the child (not to mention yourself) if all that’s ever used is a paintbrush and paper.

And where’s the creativity in that?

Pablo Picasso said it best:

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

How shall we keep our children as artists as they grow?

A few new ways to paint couldn’t hurt, could it? Grab a new tool to paint with, or a new method of painting, and get creative today!

50 Creative Painting Ideas for Kids

Like I said, there are a million ways to paint. These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg.

There are so many ways and tools to use to paint with kids! Check out this extensive list of painting ideas to get the creativity flowing in your kids today!

28 Different Tools as New Painting Ideas for Kids

Introduce new tools to use with paint and your child will jump at the opportunity to get creative!

Get creative yourself with what you use.

Paint with a sponge! Make a rainbow on the sponge if you’re feeling super creative.
Add a stencil to the mix like Red Ted Art. Sponge paint over it to make instant pictures!
Reuse bubble wrap. Paint on it, make prints, whatever suits you!
Water is an awesome means of painting. There’s something magical about it as it dries up!
Use a paint roller like My Bored Toddler. Kids love to do things just like Mom and Dad!
Finger paint. An obvious one, but I often forget this easy peasy creative activity!
Paint something big, like a window!
A no mess, toddler approved option is baggy painting! Add an object to the baggy and go!
Use odds and ends to paint with, like spoons and forks from the last birthday party.
Get moving while you paint! Throwing ribbons is a great option for older toddlers and preschoolers that have the urge to move!
Along the lines of the ribbon painting, but with a sliding twist, symmetrical string painting, with an idea from Preschool Powol Packets.
Roll things! Like plastic Easter eggs or balls!
Use your child’s interest to paint. Vehicle painting is a huge hit here!
Use your hands and fingers to make prints!
Raid your kitchen like Crayon Freckles suggests! Kitchen utensils have great painting potential.
Blow paint with straws!
Use Q-tips as mini paintbrushes, just like Make and Takes.
A super fun and magical twist, like this idea from Left Brain Craft Brain, is magnet painting!
Kids love to squirt things! Try using a cleaned medicine syringe.
On that same not, eye droppers are another fun tool to paint with! And works their fine motor skills, with an idea from Picklebums.
Use a paper plate to make spin art, just like on Teach Preschool.
Splat painted spaghetti! Projects for Preschoolers thinks it’s a wonderful sensory activity, too!
Casa Maria’s Learning Zone loves to roll paint with rolling pin!
Paint with themselves. That’s right. Use the entire body and really get into the painting, like this idea from Modern Parents Messy Kids.
Go on a nature hunt and paint with your findings, just like Glitter on a Dime!
Growing Play suggests making your own bingo/dot markers!
Painting with sticks is 100% Toddler Approved!
Paint with frozen paint-cicles!

Try different methods of painting to Kids interested and creative!

8 Different Painting Method Ideas

New methods of painting are almost as effective as new tools to paint with! Kids get a kick out of jumping or running and creating something while doing so!

Salad spinner painting. A few drops of paint and spin, spin, spin!
Use a box or container and some toys and shake, shake, shake! A great method for newbies to painting, or toddlers.
Pour paint over an object. Get really creative with the colors and make a rainbow, like Dilly Dali Art.
Blow colored bubbles and make prints with an idea from The Chocolate Muffin Tree.
Swing it! Innovation Kids Lab shared how to make a pendulum and paint from it!
Hold it up and let the paint drip, like Childhood 101.
Squirt and squish paint in wax paper with an idea from Beansprout Preschool.
Use spray bottles and squirt colored water to paint something!

There are many more methods of painting that also get your body moving shown in the Big, Big Art Collection.

Here is a list of recipes for making various types of paint at home!

14 Different Homemade Paint Recipes

Making your own paint is super easy. Pretty much add food coloring to anything and you’ve created a painting medium.

Try some of these tried and true recipes for painting with your kids and you’ll never be short on paint again!

For versatile fun and great for toddlers who still put things in their mouths, try an edible finger paint recipe.
Another edible finger paint, but super, duper simple is yogurt paint.
Instead of chalk, sidewalk paint to paint the driveway.
Same as above, but with a fun fizzy twist is the fizzy sidewalk paint.
Paint all you want and then make it puffy, like Tinkerlab, with this microwave puffy paint recipe!
The Imagination Tree likes to scrub a dub in the tub and get creative with shaving cream bath paint.
Add even more fun to the tub with a glowing bath paint, like Growing a Jeweled Rose.
Three Bears Get Crafty suggests edible whipped cream paint.
The kids will have a blast painting themselves or each other with a body paint recipe, like Modern Parents Messy Kids.
Or try a recipe one that’s meant for the face! Use this face paint recipe from Pennies into Pearls.
A staple painting would be watercolors. Creative Jewish Mom likes making DIY with this watercolors recipe.
Make an easy glue paint with a recipe from Simple Play Ideas.
A condensed milk paint recipe from Mama.Papa.Bubba! It’s so shiny!
A window paint recipe that contains soap so it makes for easy cleanup, and clean windows!

I am constantly inspired by painting ideas for kids.

I have an ongoing list of ways to paint on my “Painting Like an Artist” board on Pinterest. For this list of activities, I also dug into my “Kids Art in Every Form” board, as well as “Craft Recipes for Kids“.

Once you start, you won’t stop!