Easy Art Ideas
Do you need some easy art ideas to try with your kids?
This list of super fun, super easy art ideas is perfect for kids of all ages!
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 ideas are great process art activities that are sure to encourage creativity in your kids!
Which one will you try?
My favourite easy art activity for a lesson on the run is Jogakbo, which is a Korean paper folding art. It involves using circles of paper and folding them to create a square and then folding the points inwards. The look fantastic in different colours, are cheap to make, and look fantastic joined together to make a wall hanging. I have also made them from clay and fabric, and both an look beautiful and be constructed to make all sorts of things.
Our favorite activity would my using our hand and foot prints and turning them into santa’s, hot rod’s, tractors etc
The easiest art activity at all for my 2 year old involves the biggest sheet of paper we can find and finger/feet painting. She just loves dipping her chubby little toes and fingers in the bright colours (also a great sensory activity). Thank goodness for easy wash paint! We also love dipping a tennis ball in paint and throwing it at the paper.
One of our simple art activities is rolling out a piece of paper and letting the boys paint with their cars! They love seeing what tracks the different cars make! Then of course we have to create a car wash in the sink to get them all clean again!
Magic painting!
Crayons on large paper & water colours over it. White crayon works well as a secret message & rainbow crayons with black paint makes great fire work pictures.
My 4 year old’s favourite easy art activity is ‘vegetable and fruit painting’! We cut potatoes, cucumbers, citrus fruit etc in half and dip the halves into different colours of paint, and then stamp the patterns on large pieces of paper to make art!
The different textures with different coloured paints look really nice.
We then use the dried pictures as gift wrap paper.
We love mixing food colouring into bubble solution, then blowing bubbles at a canvas! Don’t know who had more fun!
My daughter uses her toy cars and wheels them across her sheets of paper with paint on them, its leaves little track marks which we cello-tape up and make into a floor mat for her to use as a race track. Simple and fun :D
It’s simple, I grab some masking tape and start rolling out a length directly onto the floor… a strategically placed match box car, the masking tape left in place and a host of recycled household packaging items that have been covered in white paper. A black felt tip pen and some colours and that’s it… you leave it, you wait and then whammo, you’ve caught one…two …now three kids. There’s excitement as they begin to construct a city, or a farm…oh now they’ve grabbed their far animals and paddle pop sticks for fences….as problems arise, more materials are sought (i.e. play doh to help stand the fences up) and so it grows. This kind of art making is hands down my favourite. It’s open ended, child directed and oh so much fun. Micador art materials and all those brilliant and bright colours would be the ultimate addition to such an activity.
Art journaling is by far my favourite, i can go elaborate with paints and cut outs and glitter or easy with just pencils and crayons depending on our day.
we really like to paint. I grab the big brushes and the little brushes and go to town
Magical Maps, that’s what I call them to inspire my little man’s mind. I either let him freestyle on paper or give him a ” Mr.Squiggle” interpretation and a theme, city, farm, space. He loves to incorporate mazes into his designs too. I love this activity as it opens up his imagination and prompts lots of interesting conversations whilst I can cook and he can create :-)
Ps. Your journaling activity has inspired a Xmas present, which I am really looking forward to doing with him, Thankyou.
My kids love putting some paper in a salad spinner with some globs of paint and then spinning it as fast as they can to mix the colours and see what beautiful images and shapes they can find in the colour mix.
The girls (4, 6, and 9) love to start a painting or drawing and then swap and the next person work on it for 5 minutes and then swap again until everyone has had a go. The collaboration is amazing when they agree! Having to discuss and coordinate who does what has been an interesting learning experience.
Paint colourful patterns on paper, cut them into long strips, glue them or staple them together to make paper chains to suit different celebrations or themes throughout the year. Gives my kids hours of fun and creativity and is such a personalised work of art for all to enjoy.
bubble blowing art work – you use coloured liquid bubbles, blow them up with a straw, press paper on the top to capture the bubbles
We have a lot of things we do! But my (2yr old) daughter’s favorite is painting with TP rolls! She LOVES to paint!!
We love watercolour painting too! Our favourite effect is probably ‘resist’ painting using oil pastels with water colours painted over the top.
Performance art! We will all grab something that makes a noise and go for it. My 11 month old will bang a drum while my 2 year old strums a ukele and we all sing terribly. That and making the craziest faces we can in the mirror.
my grandson and I love to use moulding clay to make figures and then we make a track and we race them