Cotton bud painting

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On the last day of the school holidays, with the “entertainments budget” well and truly rinsed beyond all recognition (in all honesty this happened long before the last day) I was looking for ideas to keep Ben and Chloe busy that didn’t involve us going anywhere or spending a single penny. I had a quick look through my Pinterest boards and came across an idea I had re-pinned recently.

What you will need for cotton bud painting:

* Poster paint (we already had red, blue, green and yellow poster paints from the Tesco Create range but I’ve recently noticed they’ve expanded their colour collection so will be investing in more colours soon! (Don’t forget you’ll also need something to pour the paint into)

* Paper (I’ve still got a wedge of slightly thicker than average paper – no idea where it came from – which is lovely for painting on but at the rate Chloe goes through it I think it will be gone soon!)

* Cotton buds (as pinched from Mummy’s make up drawer!)

How to paint with cotton buds

Ben and Chloe were both really excited at the prospect of doing a bit of painting and were keen to get started. I had poured a small amount of paint into the paint pots to make it easier for them to use (I didn’t bother with any water as there’s no brushes to clean – hurrah!) and then just gave them a cotton bud each to get started.

Ben was really good at not “double dipping” his cotton buds and mixing the colours and got a bit frustrated at Chloe for doing it but in fairness she’s only really used to having one brush to use and doesn’t get the idea of “spoiling” the colours, she just wants to paint and she wants to do it now! I tried to keep her going with a fresh supply of buds if only to keep Ben happy (if she was painting on her own it really wouldn’t have mattered if the colours had all been messed up as it’s all just about the experience isn’t it!?)

I noticed immediately that using the cotton buds was a very precise way of painting. Chloe enjoyed making long stripes of colour and also using the end to “dot” all over her page and make a spotty pattern. Ben started off with a big yellow circle and told me he was making the sun (this is the first time I’ve known him paint with a purpose) , he then chose the red and explained that it was “Mars”.

Once he’d made those two planets he wasn’t sure what colour to do next for another planet so chose green (anyone who knows Ben knows this is his favourite colour and it is never a surprise when he chooses it!) He spotted some stickers in my box left over from a previous project and decided he wanted to add them to his “planets” so he put his work to one side to dry. I had of course by this stage whipped away Chloe’s first piece of paper as I didn’t want her to over paint it!

They both carried on for a quite a while – Ben painted a picture of himself and wrote his name in paint (green of course) then proceeded to try and cover an entire page in blue paint. Chloe continued to mix her paints up and use up lots of cotton buds just generally exploring, this in true Chloe style degenerated into painting her hands – she’s not shy when it comes to getting in a mess that’s for sure! I left Ben to add the stickers to his dry picture while I cleared up (bonus of this activity is that it the clearing up is significantly reduced by chucking away your tools!) so this was a completely independent element to his work – and how cool is it?!

Two children suitably entertained, three new pieces of work to update the kitchen gallery and one happy Mummy. Job well done.