The idea for this post was not an open ended paint project instead I was going to do dribble art with my kids. It’s a simple and still pretty open project when you squeeze watered down paint from sponges onto good thick paper making cool designs. We have been working on fine motor skills and squeezing the sponges are a good exercise. However things didn’t go as planned which is fine! They took hold of the activity and I sat back to document. I did carry them both the the bathroom but other than that I was hands off after step 2. I loved watching them simply explore and the picture above is a perfect example of why just letting them take the wheel more often than not is so important. Look at how different their projects are despite having only a few identical materials.
- Gather your materials.
If you want to make dribble paintings use paint, muffin tin, sponges cut into squeezable sizes and paper. If you just want some fun open creative painting – put out anything. Brushes or no brushes, all different colors of paint and make sure to have extra paper on hand.
- Start by trying to squeeze the paint out of the sponge
and make designs with the dribbles.
- Sit back and just watch.
I think I may have said “Not on the window.” a few times and “Not in her hair!” at least once. 
I wasn’t so worried about arm painting.They had a blast and both paintings are proudly on display in my son’s room. There is no wrong way to paint and I wasn’t about to stop their creativity because it wasn’t in my plan.
I know letting your kids go wild won’t be something all of you will be into but do let your planned ideas veer off course and run with their ideas when they have them, it’s not a fail it’s just a new path!
Eddie - The Usual Mayhem says
I find that at least half the time when they get caught up in the process and the original plan goes off-track, the end result is way more interesting that what I was originally aiming for.
Vivian L says
As a former kindergarten teacher, who now takes a day or two a week from my current job to watch my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter for what we fondly call “grandma preschool”…….this is a great article. I am relatively new to your blog, but love your entries. When we paint together, it doesn’t matter what my plan is because she will decide what she ultimately wants to do. And isn’t that our mission anyway, to let our little ones be creative? Thanks for some great ideas. We did yesterday’s activity, but I didn’t have an eye dropper, so we used a squirt bottle. After our first two, she got impatient and saturated the coffee filters with water. She was not terribly happy with the fact that her designs all but faded away, but she has a better understanding now of what too much or too little water will do to water based markers. Oh, and maybe she will listen to grandma next time I tell her “I don’t think you’ll like the way they turn out”. Instead of ribbons, her suggestion was to hang them by pipe cleaners, which worked out well. Again, thanks for a great blog!!
Georgine says
I have learned it is all about the process. My poor first child! I wanted the same results of some Internet post. She had her own ideas. Now, who cares, as long as they are exploring their creativity. I do still cringe a bit when I give them a canvas and they’ll make two marks on it and their done. Give them just a piece of paper And they create a masterpiece. Go figure.
Billy says
Maybe I should buy big bottles of paint for each colour and take out just one or two colours at a time (instead of the long tray of all the different colurs), because we always end up with everything being one big BROWN. Oh, and my daughter (2.7) just loves painting her body.. she usually very quickly goes from the “art” work to body painting. I am okay with her painting her body, just frustrated about whatever we are not doing..
Tara Ziegmont says
This is beautiful. It’s also exactly the same thing that would happen if I put my two side by side with paint. My sister shared it with me on Facebook because she thought it looked like my kids. 🙂