Texturized Splatter Painting: A Super Easy Summer Art Project for any Child

Spending time with your children can be an exciting experience this summer. Here is a simple project that can be done no matter the age of your child. As long as your child can hold a paintbrush they can do this craft!

Texturized Splatter Paint

Materials Needed:

*Canvas, any size you want

(I used a three foot by two foot canvas, and each of my kids used a 3 inch by 3 inch canvas.)

*Several Acrylic paints, any color

*Salt, any brand will do as long as it's fine grained

*Bowls for salt

*Paint brushes, multiple sizes

*Cups to rinse your brushes

*Water

*Optional Newsprint

*Sunscreen

*Paper plates

The best place to work on your splatter paint project is outside, so make sure you apply sunscreen to the kids before starting. I neglected to do this, and my daughter wound up with a pretty good sunburn. It is important to note that the paint will get everywhere, so make sure you are spread out at least an arms length from each other. We used the picnic table as a central location for all our paint supplies. This made it much easier to share materials.

Before you begin it might be a good idea to spread newsprint on the grass to keep it from becoming rainbow grass. The newsprint will also give your child a good work space. If you tell your child that the newsprint is the work area it will help to minimize the excess paint on the grass. But, remember that paint, especially when being flung with a brush will travel, so don't be too upset if the paint does decorate your grass for a few days.

Now that your workspace is set up, have your child choose the colors they want to use for their artwork. It is okay to remind them what colors go best together, or to even take a color palette outside for them to refer to. Because they are using an actual canvas their artwork will last for a long time, and you want to help them create something they will always be proud of. Once they have chosen their colors, help them to apply a small amount of paint to the paper plate. This will be their work palette.

After choosing a brush (varying sizes provide varying paint splatters-I alternated brush sizes for my work), dip the fibrous end into the paint. Now, in a small motion move your wrist and hand backwards then thrust it forward in a way that will allow the paint to land on the blank canvas. For a larger canvas it may be necessary to use a harder thrusting motion with your wrist. It is okay for the paint to drip., and It is important to allow your paint to dry a little before switching colors. This will keep the paint from combining into a messy dark color.

Once the under painting of colors has dried, add a new layer of splatter paint. This time, while the paint is still wet throw salt into the wet paint. It will dry into the paint and give your painting an interesting texture. It is okay if the salted paint runs or drips.

For the center of my painting, I decided to make the Greek letter Alpha. I wanted mine to have kind of a Christian theme. So, I took a dry paint brush and used it to remove the paint where I wanted to place the Alpha. This left a thin layer of paint and salt beneath the area where I scraped, and that is okay. Then I used a metallic gold paint to apply the Alpha into the area of paint that I removed. The under layer of salt gave the Alpha a very stone like look. I did not reapply salt to the outer layer of the Alpha.

Creating art is both a learning and a rewarding experience. Sharing an art project with your children is a really easy way to spend time with your kids. My children love painting and love spending time with me even more. This splatter paint art project will help your child to create a beautiful piece of artwork, and even more importantly allow them to build life long memories of the summer they shared with you.