Circle Art Process Painting

Today I'm excited to share with you a simple but fun process art activity- Circle Art Painting. It's always great to allow your children free artistic expression through activities where the process is more important than the final product. Painting projects are especially well suited for process art. When I set up this activity for my 4 & 5 year old daughters, I guessed that the results would be beautiful (and they were!) but more importantly, I knew that they would have fun exploring the colors, sizes, and thicknesses of different circles as they painted.

Here's how to set up your own Circle Art Process Painting.

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Gather Materials For Circle Art Process Painting

washable children's paint (we love Crayola and Palmer) in a variety of colors
recyclable material circles (straws, lids, fruit or applesauce cups, cans, toilet paper tubes, plastic or paper cups)
big paper

Get Set Up For Painting

I keep a small collection of recyclable materials for us to use as arts and crafts materials. (Don't fret-- I'm not a hoarder. The collection is small!) The girls helped me raid the collection to find everything with a circle shape. If you don't have plenty of circle things on hand, just save up for several days until you've got what you need. You'll want to make sure you have circles in all sizes including straws for tiny circles and large lids or containers for large circles.

Squirt paint onto several plastic or paper plates. I also put paint into small containers for easier dipping of the tiny items.

Lay out some large paper for your children to paint on. You could also certainly complete this project on regular paper. I just think that bigger is better when it comes to art!

Invite Your Children To Circle Paint

Let your children paint! My girls both went straight for the larger smoothie straws. They enjoyed seeing how the effect was different after each subsequent press onto the paper- thick and gloppy at first, thinner and lighter later.

Next Lena began using a large plastic cup to make "Olympic Rings." She made several sets of overlapping circles.

Maggie also discovered that some of the circle materials made a thin film of paint as she lifted them from the paint plates. She enjoyed poking it and watching it splatter a bit.

Lena and Maggie both kept it up for nearly an hour. They happily traded supplies and paint colors, discussed the sizes and position of the circles they were printing, and generally had a grand old time.