Pint-Sized Picassos Art Project

Whether or not you hope your child will become the next Monet, Manet, or Picasso, this is a great art project for kids on rainy afternoon. In particular, this project will help to improve fine motor skills, critical thinking skills, develop a basic understanding of color mixing, in addition to fostering a budding appreciation for art. The best part is that it's wonderfully simple (for you) and great fun (for both you and your child!) In this project, your young artist will create a painting of their own creation directly on top of a famous painting or other image of their choice to create one-of-a-kind junior artwork.

Materials:

An 8 x 5" (or thereabouts) picture of a famous work of art or other picture of your child's choice (animals, flowers, still life, or pretty landscapes work well too!)
Cardboard (cut to same size as picture)
Craft glue or double stick tape
Acrylic paints in red, blue, yellow, white and black (available from about $0.50 each at craft stores)*
Paint brushes
Paper plates to serve as paint mixing palettes
Art shirt or smock

1. Help your child select a picture. You can find these in art magazines, old national geographic magazines, or you can print out an image of a famous painting from on the web (just do a Google image search and presto! There you have it.)

2. Depending on your child's age, help them cut out the picture they've picked, and then affix it to the cardboard with either a very thin layer of glue, or a good amount of double stick tape.

3. Next, encourage your child to pick one area of the image to begin painting over the top of first. You might start from one corner, or perhaps with the brightest color of the image, or maybe with the subject of the picture first. Any of these options are fine. Explain that from the three primary colors--blue, red, and yellow--you can make any color under the rainbow with the help of white to make colors lighter, and black to make them darker. Allow your child to guess which colors need to be mixed together in order to match the color of the area of the painting they would like to paint first.

Exact color matches aren't necessarily important at this point, just getting a general understanding of the way color mixing works is the main goal.

4. Once your child is done mixing the colors together, show them how to apply the color over the area of the painting with the same color they've mixed using deliberate, careful brushstrokes. Use the paint you've mixed for any other areas of the image that have the same color before moving on and mixing the next color to apply. Once your child gets the hang of this process, it may be rewarding for them to continue working independently of your help (depending on age and ability, of course).

5. Repeat this color mixing and painting process until the entire image is painted over with acrylic paints. Allow to dry for a couple hours. Your child will then have a finished, original work of art modeled on a real image or masterpiece! Oftentimes, these turn out absolutely great and you can reward your young artist's hard work by adding an inexpensive frame and matting, and then hanging the painting in your home.

If you try this project, I'd love to hear how it goes--leave a note! Happy painting to all!

*Note: Acrylic paint will wash out of clothing, as long as you do so before it dries.