In case you haven’t noticed, we do quite a few art activities at The Pickle Farm.
I love doing arty things as much as my kids do, which is probably the biggest reason why we do so much of it, but I also believe that art for kids should be easy!
I am busy enough, without throwing elaborate, time consuming, and expensive art projects into the mix. There is nothing that puts me off more, than a project that takes hours to set up, and even longer to clean up, or one that needs fancy equipment that I have to go out and buy. There is a time and place for art and craft projects that have fancy end products (though mine never look like the ones in the picture!), but in general, I think doing art with your kids should be simple, fun and doable!
Here are are few of the fun and easy art ideas we’ve shared this year…
All of these activities use products given to us by Micador, and to help you get arty with your kids I have a fabulous selection of Micador products to giveaway!
This competition is now closed.
Congratulations to Kathy who’s winning comment was – “We love watercolour painting too! Our favourite effect is probably ‘resist’ painting using oil pastels with water colours painted over the top.”
The lovely Micador staff have collected all the items you’ll need to do the activities I linked to above, so now there is no excuse not to get arty with your kids!
The Micador art pack is valued at over $100 and includes the following –
- Micador Black & White Visual Art Diary
- Micador Colourfun Brush Pack of 4 – Flat
- Micador Colourfun Brush Pack of 4 – Round
- Micador Easy Wash Fluoro Paint – Green, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Fluoro Paint – Orange, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Fluoro Paint – Pink, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Fluoro Paint – Yellow, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Paint – Metallic Blue, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Paint – Metallic Green, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Paint – Metallic Purple, 120ml
- Micador Easy Wash Paint – Metallic Red, 120ml
- Micador Large Oil Pastels – Colourfun, Pack 48
- Micador Large Oil Pastels – Fluoro, Pack 12
- Micador Marathon Markers, Wallet 12
- Micador Painting Paper, A3
- Micador Tempera Painting Tray – Fluoro, Disc 6
- Micador Visual Art Diary – Assorted, A4
You can find all of these items and loads more, plus activities and ideas at the Micador website.
To win this fabulous Micador art pack just leave a comment and tell me what your favourite easy art activity is. This is a game of skill and the most creative or interesting entry will win.
This is a quick one, and entries close Friday December 20th at 11am. Be watching your emails later that afternoon as I will be emailing the winner as soon as possible so we can get these items in the post and to your house in time for the holidays (Unfortunately we can not guarantee delivery in time for Christmas)
Terms and Conditions.
You must be an Australian resident to enter.
You must provide a valid email address and entries are limited to one per household.
Entries close Friday December 20 2013 at 11am AEDLST. One winner will be contacted by email and announced on this post.
The winner must contact me within 2 days or the prize will be re-drawn.
The winner agrees to have their contact details passed on to the appropriate PR company or brand representative who will send out/organise the prizes directly.
Disclosure: I have been lucky enough to work with Micador for most of this year. All of the posts linked to above include references to items given to us by Micador. I was not compensated in any way for this post, and all opinions are my own.
For more great ideas for preschool aged kids buy this great ebook!
Some of my favourite artworks from my 3 preschool boys are the installations that they produce out of found objects. One of my boys independently produced an artwork from a thick piece of string with a few large beads on it and in the middle was a clothes peg tightly clasping some wild flowers and some bark. The carefully selected but simplicity of the every day objects were transformed into an item of treasure for my little boy.
Another installation consisted of patty pans of various shapes, sizes and colours, positioned in a large design on the carpeted floor. It was reminiscent of a jewelled whales tale. Some patty pans were upside down, the others the right way up and every space inside the ‘tail’ was filled with splashes of bright colour.
I love that these artworks were produced without any parental guidance and they incidentally involved many of the elements of art such as texture, colour, shape, space and line.
Both the artworks were too beautiful to be just a memory, so I photographed them and made them into coasters. The grandparents still use them to this day and the kids are very proud of them.
Fold a piece of paper,white or coloured, in half. Place two or three different coloured blobs of paint close to centre fold . Fold paper and press firmly. Open paper out and leave to dry. When dry use textas or crayon to outline and add to paint blobs to turn into spectacular coloured insects… Butterflies , dragonflies etc
My two girls love to decorate boxes with stickers or glue on just about anything. We turn it into houses or princess castles
Oooh we love Micador products, we have some ready for Santa to give the kids – our littlest one loves painting – that is the only activity that will have her aitting still for more than 5 minutes
Thank you for offering the giveaway
If the day is gloomy,
or Miss 3 is just grumpy
there’s a guaranteed way to bring smiles!
A glue stick and paper
and a box of old ‘stuff’
for making pictures and stories that last.
Cut up old ribbons, patty pans and fluff,
pictures from junk mail and cards,
scrunched up old paper and crayons to add colour
bring imagination to life.
It may be just simple,
it really is plain,
(and it sure does create a big mess!)
But the payoff is great as we make and create
bringing smiles and enjoyment – it’s GREAT!
Easiest and fun art activity in our house involves a sheet of contact paper and randomly assorted bits to stick on it!
So easy to set up and use different resources depending on the time of the year. Today I put out lots of stars and Christmas decorations which went down really well!
My favourite easy art activity to do with the kids is painting underwater themes, like using these colours to make sea creatures
Metallic blue
Indigo
Coral
Amber
Dark green
Orange
Red
Our easy art activity – water in a bucket & a big paint brush in the hand & kids love to draw their masterpieces on the fence & the outer walls of home.
These is some mess of water but sun takes care of that – mum & kids are happy with this easy craft activity.
Don’t dump eggshell, use them to make an eggshell mosaic. Draw a picture, stick the scraps onto the paper and then do the painting. It’s easy to make and really fun. Maybe it will encourage those little ‘egg haters’ to eat more eggs :D
Lately we’ve been into popstick creations – things for the Christmas tree decorated with glitter textas and spangly bits glued on; boxes to keep treasures in; creatures with googly eyes and pipe cleaner legs.