Creating Wall Art with Children

 There are many paintings around my home that my children and I have created together. They are so special to me and I am sure one day they will be very special to my children, as well. I get asked about these so often. How to get your children involved in such a painting? How to keep it from turning into one big brown canvas?? I decided to right a post with tips to create your own masterpiece as a family. It's actually a great hobby to do together.

 OIL PASTEL, CANVAS & IDEA
I usually have my kids start with a large canvas and a black oil pastel. We sit and talk about what we want to paint and then talk some more about the different details that should be in our painting. At this age it is much easier for them to draw on the canvas and fill in with paint. Starting with paint is better for a very abstract painting.

TAKING TURNS ADDING TO THE ART
Having the kids take turns adding details has become a wonderful tool I use. Not only is it keeping our initial drawing from becoming too over crowded and out of control, but it is teaching my kids to work together and to be patient. At first, there was a lot of bickering, but eventually they enjoyed taking a moment to appreciate what the other was drawing. It was nice, really nice.

PAINT
Once we were satisfied with the drawing we moved on to paint. We used acrylic paints and kept it very simple using just four colors. Before I unleashed the paints I asked the kids to try their best to keep one brush to one color and to try not to mix colors too much. I also showed them how to blend instead of mix (this is very helpful at keeping a painting from turning into the infamous "brown" painting.)

 At this point we all painted together. The taking turns for the drawing stage was great, but all that is thrown out the window once the paint comes out!

 

 Here is what we ended with. Pretty good, right?

FINAL TOUCES
Once the painting was dry I used a foam brush and added a little bit of white washed details to soften it up a bit. You do this by dotting white paint in the areas you wish and using a rag to almost rub it in. This creates a softer look. I also used some gold paint to outline some of the kids drawings that I really wanted to stand out.

 We all signed out masterpiece and I gave our art two coats of clear varnish.

That was it. A beautiful painting made by my babies (and me.) Is it too presumptuous to imagine this hanging in my future grandchild's nursery???