Tempera Paint with Littles

Tempera paint is great because it gives those little hands more texture to work with. It is messier and if the weather is nice, I recommend taking it and your littles outside to make some art and soak up some vitamin D. Sometimes I let Owen paint in the grass and sometimes I take his high chair out to paint in. We have a cheap high chair from ikea that I LOVE for making art. With tempera it does stain, so I make sure we are wearing our paint clothes. I also have a plan for clean up, before we get started painting. Below are a variety of projects all using tempera paint. Please be aware that a lot of the time you need to seal the project after the painting is complete and dry, even a cheap can of clear spray paint will do, just make sure to do it in a well ventilated area when there are no littles around.

Tempera on canvas. 

You can get really inexpensive canvases at A.C.Moore or Michaels or any arts and crafts store. Owen made these with his Uncle Wes, when he was just about a year old. I took him outside, put him in just a diaper and let him go nuts. I gave him a variety of brushes to experiment with and let him use his hands...and feet. It was great! I plopped him right in the tub afterwards and he was good to go. This is what he looked like while painting. As you can see he really had a good time exploring the squishy paint. These were also sealed with a clear spray paint after they were fully dry and away from Owen.

Tempera with sponges.

I cut up a sponge to make some snowflakes and a snowman hat and we used a cup to make the snowman body. Owen experimented painting with sponges. He really enjoys using different tools to apply paint. Some other things we have used are a plastic fork, fabric scraps, a potato, foam stamps, the other end of the paintbrush, grass, a flower, and leaves. This painting was just done on black construction paper.

Tempera on paper board.

My husband had Owen paint this for our younger son for Christmas this year. Tempera gives nice bright colors as you can see here. This was spray sealed after it was dry as well.