Kids Art Ideas: Exploring Paint Brushes

When children are painting they’re learning to express themselves. Selecting colors and deciding where to place paint on the paper is about communicating how they feel and think and builds a child’s confidence in their own choices and opinions. The sensory nature of  the actual process of painting is beneficial too, being both relaxing and stimulating, and can be a great activity to help children manage their emotions.

To promote an interest in painting and to keep encouraging new creativity it’s great to offer different materials to try out. We’ve tried using different things to paint on, such as tin foil art, and seen what happens when we limit ourselves to just one colour. Today’s idea is to explore paint brushes.

Exploring paint brushes

We gathered together as many different paint brushes as we could find:

• different sizes: from super fine art brushes to wide decorators brushes
• different shapes: including rounded ends, wide flat brushes and angled ends
• different textures: with some coarse bristles, some fine and some sponges too

Then we covered the table with some long rolls of lining paper and the children started exploring. How did each brush feel in their hands? What lines and shapes could they create? Did the paint make different patterns with different brushes? Which ones were best for drawing characters and which ones were suited to creating the backgrounds?

The results were glorious! All sorts of different patterns and textures and shapes. The children enjoyed the whole process of the paint brush experiments but also learned some new ideas about which kind of brushes they’ll want to choose for their next projects too.

My kids love art but I’ve also seen how a new set of materials can catch the interest of kids who aren’t usually so keen to paint and invite them to have a go. If you try out some painting this week we’d love to see what you create. Share a photo with us on our Facebook page.