This super fun balloon painting for kids activity will be a hit with all ages!
Painting with balloons is a bouncy, squishy, and colourful process art activity that is easy enough for a toddlers art activity, great fun for preschoolers, and interesting enough for older kids too!
With just a few basic supplies, this balloon art activity is perfect for at home or in the classroom.
Balloons are super fun, and there are so many fun ways to use them. Decorate for a part, play some balloon tennis, or paint with them! Yes, paint with balloons!
Balloon painting is a great process art activity that is perfect for kids of all ages. Kids will love the squishy, bouncy, sensory experience of using balloons to paint with, and they make such interesting textured prints on the paper!
The balloons come with a nifty handle (the knot at the top) so it’s easy for toddlers to grasp and the simple dip and dab painting technique makes this a great art activity for toddlers. Preschoolers will love experimenting with making prints, and mixing colours and creating with this open-ended art activity. And older kids will love the interesting textures the balloon prints make, and can experiment with colour combinations and combining the balloon prints to make pictures.
Supplies for Balloon Painting.
You only need a few basic craft supplies to try this balloon painting activity, and some balloons of course!
You’ll Need:
- Some nice big sheets of paper .
- Washable paints
- Some balloons, blown up but not too big.
- A container for each colour of paint/balloon.
You’ll also need something to cover your work sufrace, and somewhere to put all your balloon painted art work to dry!
Balloon Painting FAQ
What sort of balloons do you use for balloon painting?
It’s best to use regular party sized balloons rather than water balloons as they are stronger and easier to grab onto. Blow the balloons up until they are a little bigger than your fist and tie a knot. The knot is a great handle and blowing them up only a small amount makes them nice and squishy and bouncy which is what you need to paint with balloons.
What sort of paint is best for painting with balloons?
It’s best to choose a washable liquid paint, such as liquid tempera so it’s easy to wash off hands and surfaces. Choose whatever colour paint you like, but if you are working with little kids you might like to choose 3-4 colours that mix well together so you don’t even up with a grey brown painting in the end. Colours such as red orange pink and yellow, or green blue and yellow are a good option.
We used recycled plastic containers for our paint. A container with side keeps the balloons from rolling away when you are not using them, so any container or tray you have is fine, they just need to be big enough for the balloons to fit in them.
What sort of paper is best for painting with balloons?
You’ll want to use some nice big sheets of paper so there is room for lots of balloon prints on each piece. The younger the child the large the paper should be, and you might even like to cover your worksurface with paper if you are working with very young children.
How messy is balloon painting?
Balloon painting can get a little messy, especially if your child loves the sensory input and likes to get their hands dirty! Contain the mess by covering your work surface before you begin and having your child wear an art smock or apron.
Keeping a damp cloth or some wipes near by to clean up spills and messy fingers as you go can help keep the mess under control. You can also add a squirt of dish soap and mix it into the paint before you begin to make it easier to clean up.
How to Paint with Balloons.
Once you have all your supplies ready to go and your balloons blown up, simply dip your balloons into the paint and bounce them all over the paper. They make an circular pattern with an unusual texture which is really fun!
Let your kids explore how the balloons feel in their hands and experiment with how the balloons paint onto paper.
Try bouncing your balloons lightly on the paper and see what pattern you get, and then try squishing them more firmly onto the paper and see what happens!
Dip the balloons into a single colour of paint, or try dipping them into two or more colours and see how the colours combine as you bounce the balloon onto the paper.
Challenge older kids to fill up the whole paper with balloon prints, or challenge them to balloon paint in lines or shapes. You could even draw on the paper first with a pencil and then balloon paint along the lines, or fill in the drawn pictures with balloon prints.
What Kids Learn from Painting with Balloons.
This balloon painting activity is an open-ended, process art activity that has lots of opportunity for learning and skills development.
Painting with balloons allows kids to explore and experiment with their senses, using their creativity and imagination. There are lot of opportunities for fine and gross motor skill practice as well as eye hand co-ordination. Children can explore cause and effect as they see what happens when they paint with the balloons in different ways, and practice colour recognition and explore colour mixing.
Balloon painting is a great group activity that encourages social interaction, it’s perfect for parallel play as children paint side by side, or make it a group art project for even more social skill learning. It’s also a great opportunity for language development (talk about the colours, the feel of the balloons, or sing songs about balloons, or bouncy balls as you paint etc.)
More fun process art activities for kids!
If your kids loved this easy balloon painting art activity, they might also love these easy process art activities:
Try this easy and super cool absorption painting art activity.
This easy mesh dabber painting activity is perfect for toddlers!
Magically turn oil pastels into paint with this oil pastel painting art for kids.
This looks like so much fun! Will definitely be having a crack at this :)
I know my boys would love this, pinned so it says on my to do list
This is really fun activity for children. My children would love to do that and will enjoy very much.
This looks so much fun, my children would love making these with me.
Okay so this just gave me a great idea! I do not have any balloons around the house because I am afraid of the choking hazard of balloons! But! I do have a huge variety of bouncy balls around the house! Tomorrow (when I do not have a migraine headache) I am going to do this with my grand children…outside! It will probably get crazy but that is what will make it fun…right? Hmm maybe I should get a big box an contain the activity in the box!! Yes! That I will try! I will also try to take pictures…try anyway…
Fun idea! I think I’ll try it as outdoor art activity by hanging butcher paper on the fence and letting kids have at it.
I totally agree with balloons and kids almost always ending in tears. My kids are so precious when it comes to balloons. Love this post Kate. I’ll be featuring this post as part of my Playing with Balloons roundup. xo Pauline
Wow, very creative indeed. I will try this with my 5 year old girl who loves painting.