Kids Art: Printmaking with Toys

I love that printmaking, as an artistic medium, can be as simple or as complicated as you wish.

Obviously with toddlers and young children, simple is best!

When choosing objects for children to print with, you need look no further than around your own home – the kitchen, fruit bowl, even the garden – they all harbour printmaking delights. However, one of our favourite places is the playroom. Toys are great for making prints with.

The printing featured here was made with an assortment of wooden and plastic blocks.

Childhood 101 | Printmaking with children_kids art ideas

Use a flat tray for your paint. In this case, a simple polystyrene meat tray and child friendly acrylic paint.

Childhood 101 | Printmaking- art projects for kids

We experimented with printing on brown paper bags versus plain, white copy paper; art does not need to be expensive to create.

Childhood 101 | Printmaking- kids art ideas

By starting with light colours, you can keep adding paint to create darker colours to add to your masterpiece. In a similar way to our monoprinting experience, we added layer upon layer of colour. It’s hard to know which was more fun, the colour mixing or the printing.

Childhood 101 | Printmaking- children and art

One of our finished masterpieces.

Variations for you to try;

  • Large animal and dinosaur figurines that might create fun paw prints and tracks
  • Cars, trucks and trains, especially those with bumpy tyres
  • Large, outdoor play trucks on big sheets of paper make your printmaking a real physical activity
  • For preschoolers and older children, have them wrap wool or string around a block and secure with tape
  • Lego can be used to make some really interesting pictures and effects with older children who are more detail conscious

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5 Comments

  1. Thanks for some great ideas! We have a lovely sunny day on the central coast and the kids have been outside painting for over an hour. The next thing to keep them busy will be washing and drying their toys which are covered in paint (from your previous post). Thanks 🙂

  2. looks like loads of fun!

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