Canvas Painting with Kids

Still thinking about what to get your loved ones for Valentine's Day, how about a canvas painting that spells LOVE?

My boys and I painted these and gave them away as Christmas presents last month.

You can get the canvas from Art Friend. A 24" x 24" stretched canvas costs about $15. They are available in many different sizes and they offered canvases on a circular / oval frames.

We used non toxic acrylic paints from Nurture Craft (Forum Galleria B1-10). It washes off really easily and doesn't have the strong smell that some paints have.

Acrylic paints from Nurture Crafts

For the first painting, I pasted the areas that I didn't want the boys to paint over with masking tape. Then with a dish washing sponge, they dabbed paint over all the uncovered parts. First with yellow paint, then with red paint. We let the yellow paint dry out before applying the red paint. When everything was dry, I peeled off the masking tape, and they went "wow"!

Masking tape covers areas not to be painted

I varied the 'technique' for the second painting, getting them to spread the paint out using the kitchen sponge instead. They had fun with this... Cos it is so much messier! Thankfully, the paints that ended up all over their hands/arms and even legs washed off easily.

The third is a set of three paintings. This is 奶奶's baptism present. For these three paintings, the boys got to use paint brushes. They were delighted... finally, we get to paint with brushes! The flower proved to be rather challenging for the boys as the petals were 'quite' small. They had difficulties keeping within the boundaries... and we ended up with the rather distorted bloom.

The boys had fun painting these gifts, and I'm pretty sure the recipients were delighted to receive them.

Have fun painting yours!