diy kids watercolour paintings {using food colouring}

I love simple, fun and creative activities. Particularly when they involve reading a book.

We recently read the book The Three Monsters Big Night Out by Laurence Bourguignon and Michael Derullieux after borrowing it from our local library.

It is a lovely, non scary story about monsters that was enjoyed by our 5 year old in particular. I wanted to keep the enthusiasm going so I got our water colour pad out of the craft cupboard. Our pad is A3 in size and cost a few dollars.

I used food colouring for paint; a teaspoonful added to a bit of water works well.

After drawing our monsters with lead pencil the painting began. We were working at our dining table, so I tore off some sheets of aluminium foil to place underneath the paintings. I'm sure there would have been a bit of seepage through to the tablecloth otherwise!

The idea was to draw and paint roughly; lines didn't need to be exact and neither did the painting.

 Everyone did a painting. These are Eli's four monsters.

Lily opted for a Star Wars painting.

These were a lot of fun and clean up was only a matter of washing out the paintbrushes and glasses used for the food colouring.

These paintings also look great if you outline them in black marker once they are dry.

So, if you have younger children or are looking after children and need an activity give this a go!