The Power of Painting: Boost Your Child’s Creativity

When we’re talking about children’s development, boosting their creative thinking is important for a variety of reasons. Making something with its own hands means boosting its self-confidence and the ability to self-value and appreciate its own effort. Except for self-confidence, by getting creative, your child improves its problem-solving abilities by depicting spontaneous ideas, as well as practising focus and concentration.

Out of all the different creative activities, creating art with a brush means having an opportunity to express yourself- bring out your own feelings, thoughts and fears on a piece of paper, while exploring new ideas and learning more about yourself. Not only painting has a great impact on your child’s mental health, but learning how to hold and “manipulate” with a brush impacts the development of its fine motor skills too.

At this point, know that fostering the creative process in your child through painting miracles with a brush, also leads to developing into a healthy and emotionally stable adult.

Painting is a great idea to contribute to your child’s creative flow, but that doesn’t mean that you should visit the nearest painting supplier and toss the first painting kit into your cart. Have in mind that your child’s still vulnerable and its immune system is still fragile. Exposing your child to toxic chemicals such as inorganic compounds of lead, cadmium, manganese, mercury, cobalt, ammonia or chrome found in some painting materials, can result in problems ranging from headaches, nausea and poisoning to dangerous cancers and death. Not only these painting supplies can make your child feel nauseous and vomit, but they can also irritate its soft skin and mouth if accidentally swallowed.

On the other hand, some paints, such as the professional acrylic ones are based on oils that are not recommended for children under the age of 12, since they often include chemical solvents such as toluene and methyl alcohol, which are the two elements that can give off VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds). Getting in touch with your child’s skin, these harmful compounds can lead to developing eczema, as well as causing allergic rhinitis and asthma when inhaled.

For this purpose, make sure you always choose a set of non-toxic childrens paint that won’t harm your little one in any way. Not only choosing paints that don’t contain any dangerous ingredients and oils will let you rest assured that you made the right choice for your child, but these paints are also adjusted to your kid’s needs, making it easier to use and “dilute” with water. The fact that they contain water instead of different oils and chemicals will additionally ease the process for you since these paints are easily washable too.

Except for choosing a kid safe paint kit, consider the surface your child’s going to paint on. For painting on simple papers, choosing paints such as watercolours, tempera and finger paints will do fine. But, for painting on some surfaces such as fabrics, canvas, stones or wood surfaces, you’re going to need “tougher” supplies such as acrylic paints that are children-safe, since these paints have the sticking power and adhere to different surfaces easier.

After you choose the most appropriate childrens paint for your little one, it’s time to get creative. But sometimes, encouraging the inner Picasso in your child can be a long and exhausting journey for both of you if your little one doesn’t really enjoy it. That's why it's essential to do it in the right way and support your little one in every step of the process.

Make sure you stay by your child and encourage it the entire time while it’s painting. Some praising phrases like “You did a great job” or “You drew a nice landscape” will boost your child’s self-esteem and confidence, and will also make painting become its favourite activity to do, even when it becomes an adult.

It’s scientifically proven that music boosts young brains by enhancing their creativity and thinking skills, and has the ability to inspire not only youngsters but adults too. For this purpose, make sure you put on some music before your child starts doing miracles with its kid painting supplies. To boost its creativity even more, experiment with different genres (classical, pop, rock or reggae) and see how your child responds to them through the art it creates.

When learning to paint, one of the most important things is to understand the relationships between different colours. For this purpose, introduce your child to the secondary colours, by asking it to mix different primary colours and see for itself how different colours and shades are acquired.

Also, one of the recommended techniques to get introduced to different primary and secondary colours is painting in the “Pointillist” style, which means painting by using only dots of colours. This way, your child will be able to see how small sections of colours can create something completely unique when seen from distance.

Drawing some simple shapes with a pencil makes correcting mistakes easy by simply erasing them with rubber. Painting doesn’t have the “undo” option, which makes it useful to teach your child some valuable lessons such as taking its time to create things is essential to avoid the consequences of some mistakes, as well as feeling more confident and bringing smart decisions for things that can’t be “redone”.

Teaching your child the importance of using different brushes to achieve different shapes and textures “on the canvas” is of great importance. So, at the beginning of its painting “career”, especially if you’re teaching a toddler, make sure you start with brushes that have large handles and are easy to grasp since at this stage your child’s fine motor skills are still in development.

When you make sure your little one mastered the basic brush, start introducing it to different brushes made for specific types of paints and for drawing specific forms and shapes. The most essential brushes for your kids paint kit are the chubby brushes, fabric brushes, floppy brushes, foam brushes etc…These brushes that come in different sizes, shapes and designs will give your child a great opportunity to explore different opportunities, and learn which brush to use for getting different shapes and textures.

In 99% of the cases, painting with your child means having the entire house coloured in kid paints. In these situations, remember that scolding your child is the last thing you should do since it will only discourage it to release its creativity. Here’re some tips for a stress-free painting for both you and your little Picasso:

To protect your child’s clothes and save yourself from washing and scrubbing kid paints from its brand new shirt, make sure you get painting smocks or suitable aprons for your child. These protective clothes are usually made of smooth plastics which are reusable and easily washable, which makes them one of the most valuable additions to the kids painting supplies kit.

Providing your child with a paint-protective apron doesn’t mean that you’re completely safe from cleaning mess. Getting creative means spilling and splashing paints and water all around the table, so you want to make sure you protect the painting area as well. For this purpose, you might want to tape the area around or get a plastic tablecloth or another type of waterproof covers that are also reusable and easily washable as well.

At the end of the day, painting means mixing colours and “splashing” them on papers or canvas, and regardless of how much you try, you can’t completely protect the surfaces around. This means that sometimes you can’t avoid cleaning, so make sure you wrap up your sleeves and get ready to clean all that mess your little Picasso made while creating its last masterpiece.

Luckily, the kids paints are easily washable, and they should get removed by wiping the area with a simple solution of water and liquid laundry detergent.

If the colour gets dried on the surface, try scraping it gently with a knife. But be careful with sharp knives, since they can scratch and destroy the area where you’re scraping. Make sure you use a dull knife instead.

For the most persistent stains, it’s recommended to apply a small amount of hair spray or rubbing alcohol and let it sit for 15 minutes before you wipe it with a clean dry cloth. However, such liquids shouldn’t be used on carpets or clothes, since they can damage and bleach the fibres. So make sure you steam vacuum carpets or simply flush the spot with cold water. For clothes, it’s always recommended to machine wash them.

However, as much as cleaning messes can be annoying to clean, they shouldn’t be a reason to neglect your child’s creative development, since it’s a valuable process that has a lot of benefits to your child’s health.