Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! We had a fantastic process art play date that was so pretty and pink I thought today was a good day to share it.  If you follow my blog, you know I am big proponent of process art for kids, especially young children.  Process art is art where the focus is the process, rather than the outcome.  It’s experiential in nature and a great opportunity to introduce children to new materials.  Process art builds confidence, outside the box thinking, and is truly engaging for young children.  For this art play date, I set up a big canvas on a coffee sized table in our playhouse.  On a separate bench I put out different art materials for the girls to explore, including stencils, glue, white paper dots, spray bottles, nancy bottles filled with pinks and purples, paint brushes, rollers, pompoms attached to clothespins and some random items I found at a local thrift store.

The girls were so busy.  They sprayed, painted, squeezed, and giggled their way through their evolving canvas.  The rollers were a highlight, as well as the spray bottles.  I had filled the bottles with liquid water colors and had a few different colors to chose from.  I purposefully manipulated the colors in an effort to avoid the mud effect.  Sometimes, if you put certain colors together, they can mix together to make a dark grey or brown, which isn’t so excited to paint with.  We stuck with pinks, purples and a little orange.  The colors were pretty gorgeous.

I love using stencils with young children.  They love to make a shape and then cover it over again with more paint.  The part of me that wants a beautiful “product” wishes they would leave the shapes, but I know once they are a bit older, that will be more interesting to them.  So for now, it’s mushing and painting and spraying and then doing it all over again.  They had a blast.

If you’re inspired to do something like this, I recommend you keep a bucket of water next to your working station.  This can get messy quick and kids love to wash their hands while they work.  It’s almost as fun as the painting.  I keep a bucket of water and a towel next to most of our art experiences.  Kids love it and you don’t have to keep running inside the house, or from one room to another.  Besides that, have fun and happy Valentines!