Watercolors with Littles

Watercolors are my favorites with littles for a lot of reasons! They are easy to use, give a good variety of colors, are so easy to clean up, and for the most part wash out of clothes! They are definitely my go to paint when I don't have a project planned and Owen just wants to paint. He usually does wear his painting shirt, but if he does get any on his clothes it will generally come out in the normal wash (the red does stain a bit). It washes off his hands and face as well as his high chair. Invest in a pad of watercolor paper, it's so worth it! Below are some basic watercolor projects that Owen (my now two year old) has done in the past year, along with how we did them. I squeeze water into each color on his eight color tray of Crayola watercolors and hand him a brush or two. I don't recommend giving them a cup of water because it will get spilled or they will just want to play in the water. *Please note: playing with water is another great activity and I give him cups of water to play with how to pour or let him "paint" the sidewalk with water.* If you are trying to get them to paint though, introducing a cup of water will only distract them and you will have an overflowing watercolor tray in no time. I also tape his paper down so that it doesn't slide around while he is working on a masterpiece.

 Owen set up in his highchair to do some watercolor painting with his Uncle Wes.

Watercolors on paper.

These are basic watercolor paintings done on watercolor paper. Owen likes to experiment with different size brushes and use his hands to make different marks.

Watercolors on wood.

These are some Christmas ornaments that Owen painted using watercolors. When I wet his tray of Crayola watercolors I usually don't put water in the black or brown as it results in a lot of muddy looking work and makes it harder for him to mix colors since he is not washing his brush between dipping it in the different colors. I did seal these with a clear spray paint after they were dry.

Watercolors and salt.

I cut out circles for Owen to paint with watercolors. While the watercolor paint was still wet I let him sprinkle on some salt, which gives it the spotty effect you can see here. We decided they were bubbles so he added some foam fish stickers to his bubbles. Owen loved this project and the different steps involved. He really enjoyed peeling the backs off the stickers and sticking them down.