Here are five fantastic and fun messy art activities for your children to enjoy this Summer. These activities can get a little messy, and you might prefer to do this in a tuff tray so that any spillages are contained. It’s definitely best enjoyed outside so that you can wash away any spillages with some water or the rain. Plus, it’s a good excuse to get outside and get some fresh air!
1. Chalk Art
You will need
- Chalks
- Paper
- Garden flag stones
- A water spray bottle
- A tub of water
- Toys
Game Ideas
- Draw a hop scotch
- Draw out an obstacle course with different shapes for different tasks. Think about fun ideas you could do at each station such as a wiggly walk, jumping, and star jumps
- Draw a road to drive your bike or scooter on. You could include a ‘car park’ too.
- Draw around some toys, take them away and then match them up.
- Draw a target with different point zones to throw a beanbag or ball into.
Drawing Ideas
- Use the garden flags as your canvas and draw with your chalks.
- Try dipping your chalks into a tub of water to see what effect that has.
- Try spraying water over the top of your drawings and watch them stand out more from the ground.
2. Foil Art
You will need
- A piece of scrap card
- Foil
- Paint
- Paint tray or paper plate
- Paint brush, scrap of sponge or an old cloth
- Cotton Buds
- Natural items
- Items for your recycling bin
- Paper
Prepare your foil canvas
- Use the side of a cardboard box for your foil canvas. Take care when cutting and ask a grown-up to supervise or do this for you.
- Cover the cardboard on one side with a piece of kitchen foil. Fold the foil around the edges of the cardboard so that you have a full side to work on. This is your foil canvas
Painting on foil
- Squirt some paint onto a paint tray and paint your foil canvas.
- Try out different materials to paint the foil and look a the different textures that can be created. You can use a brush, a scrap of sponge or an old cloth.
- You can paint a picture or patterns onto the foil to make a print.
- Alternatively, cover your foil canvas with paint and use a cotton bud to draw a picture or patterns into the paint. The cotton bud allows you to draw by removing the paint. You can also make a print from this.
Foil printing
- To make a print of your foil painting, simply take a piece of paper and place it over the top of the foil canvas whilst the paint is still wet.
- Press down gently and take care not to move the paper or to let it slide.
- Lift the paper up from your foil canvas to reveal a print of your picture.
3. Musical Painting
You will need
- Large elastic bands
- An empty box to fit your paper inside and your elastic bands around the outside
- Washable paints
- Paint brush
- Paint tray or paper plate
- Sticks
- Paper
- Card
- Paper roll or old wall paper
Play the guitar
- Place some paper inside your empty box.
- Pull your elastic bands around the box so that they appear like the strings of a guitar above the paper.
- Use a paint brush to paint the parts of the elastic bands that are over the top of the paper.
- Now for the fun part…play the guitar and pluck the elastic bands! This will create lots of interesting splash marks all over the paper.
- When your paper is full, you can slide it out and slide another piece inside the box to continue!
Bang the drums
- Squirt some paint blobs onto a piece of card. These are your drums!
- Use a stick in each hand to ‘bang the drums’
- Have lots of messy fun splatting the paint all over your piece of card!
- Another way to play the drums with your hands, is to put paint out on a tray or paper plate…
- Dip your hands in the paints and bang them up and down onto a piece of paper.
- You might like to tape down a roll of paper (or the back of an old wallpaper roll) onto the floor to do this.
- You might even want to carefully dip your feet into the paint and march across the paper pathway!
4. River Painting with Straws
You will need
- A pipette (You can drip from the tip of a teaspoon if you don’t have one)
- Water
- Paints
- Thick paper or card
- Paper straws
What you need to do
- Mix paint with water so that it is much thinner and drips easily.
- Squeeze the end of your pipette and place it into the paint. Let go of the pipette when it is sat in the paint and the pipette will suck up the paint.
- Gently squeeze small drops of paint onto your paper.
- Use a paper straw to blow the paint across your paper.
- You can also rock the paint across your paper by tilting it in different directions.
- Repeat this process with different colours.
5. Sea Froth Painting
You will need
- A tray or an open empty box without a lid
- Plastic cups – yogurt pots work well too.
- Washing up liquid
- Washable paint – blues, greens and white will work well to create sea foam.
- Water
- A paper straw
- Pipe-cleaners – for optional bubble wands.
- Thick paper or card
Prepare
- Mix a generous squirt of paint with a similar amount of washing up liquid to make some soapy paint.
- Double the amount of soapy paint you have, by adding another 2 parts of water to the mix. Mix well to create bubbly paint.
- Stand the cup of mixture on top of some thick paper or card, inside a tray.
- Supervise the activity and make sure that your child understands that they are not to suck the liquid through the straw, or they will be in for a yukky surprise! Do not swallow the mixture. With younger children, you can make the bubbles for them.
- Make the bubbles by placing your straw into the liquid and blowing air into it.
Watch in amazement as the bubbles start to rise out of the cup.
The air rises up through the soapy paint mixture creating colourful bubbles.
- Your child can create their own bubble art by placing their paper over the top of the cup, capturing the bubbles.
- You can also make your own bubble wand by twisting pipe cleaners together to make shapes. Dip your wand into the solution and blow the coloured bubble onto your paper.
- Allow to dry and re-create the process with a different colour!
You can find more beach inspired arts and crafts ideas here.
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