How To Paint With Toys

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Paint with toys to get even your most arts-&-craft resistant kids interested in the joy of painting. My 4-year-old would rather dunk toys than a paintbrush in water. He can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes when faced with a watercolor palette and a sketch pad. But when he experienced that his toys could join him in painting, he sat through two works of art! Definitely an achievement for my little arts & crafts resistant kid!

Paint with Toys
Paint with toys for a fun change!

Here are some tips on how you and your kids can paint with toys. It’s easy and lots of fun!

Ready, set, paint with toys!

All you’ll need are the following materials:

  • Paint (watercolor, poster paint — anything that can be easily washed off with soap and water when it gets stuck on little hands)
  • A bowl of water
  • Toys that can afford to get a little paint-stained. (Tip: Pick toys that have parts that would make for interesting paint prints like cars with textured tires, figurines’ hands and feet, a ball with an irregular texture, etc.)
  • Paper (We used Construction Paper)

Got them gathered? Lay out the materials on a table or on the floor and you’re all set. Let’s check out Timmy’s toy station wagon first.

Painting Car
How to Paint with a Toy Car

Step 1: Roll the car’s tires on the paint.
Step 2: Make sure you cover the entire tires.
Step 3: Set it on paper.
Step 4: Roll the car across the paper. Vroooooooom!
Step 5: Keep on rolling! :)

Now let’s try Timmy’s toy monkey. He’s the Monkey from Kung Fu Panda. He doesn’t look too happy to be a part of this Saturday morning activity but we went ahead and colored his feet anyway!

Painting Monkey
How to Paint with Toys

Steps are similar to how you paint with a toy car. Pick a part of the toy you’d like to make prints of. In Monkey’s case, we wanted prints of his feet in two different colors. We were feeling a little festive so we went for red and green!

Painting Process
The Monkey goes Jump, Paint, Jump!

Paint with toys and you’ve got yourself a more involving activity! Timmy got a kick out off his favorite toys joining in the morning art activity. He especially enjoyed making Monkey jump across his canvas. Jump, paint, jump, paint, jump, paint! In the above picture he’s given Monkey one green foot and one blue foot.

Timmy doesn’t enjoy arts and crafts but look at this — paint with toys and he was able to produce two works of art in one sitting! I’d call that a big achievement at home.

Timmy’s Works of Art

Painting #1 is a little minimalist. He chose to use a paintbrush for the greens, his pointer finger for the yellows, and his car for the red tracks.

Painting Art
Paintbrush + Fingers + Toys = A Kid’s Work of Art

Painting #2 went a totally different direction. At this point he was very much involved with the painting process. Monkey was jumping all over the paper, after which his car sped through Monkey’s tracks. Quite a story in this work of art, yes?

Painting Art 2
Let’s call this “Wild Monkey Chase”

Painting with toys will be a regular Saturday morning activity for Timmy! We’ll experiment with other toys and paints next time. For a first try though, this was a big success for my budding artist!

Have you tried painting with toys? Share your and your kids’ artwork on your blog! Let me know when it’s up so Timmy and I can go check it out. 😉

3 Comments on How To Paint With Toys

  1. ceemee
    September 14, 2013 at 5:23 pm (11 years ago)

    I haven’t tried this wonderful idea! My son doesn’t like to write or draw, but his sisters do, so this would be great to try with him so he could create an art. That is, if he doesn’t mind paint on his toys.

    Reply
    • Toni
      September 23, 2013 at 12:33 pm (11 years ago)

      Perhaps you can use toys he hasn’t played with in ages? :)

      Reply

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