28 Collaborative Art Ideas

Remember when I gave 100+ kids syringes and spray bottles full of watered down paint to create a peice of art earlier this year? Our masterpeice was made for the annual Art of Giving. It’s an annual event that raised $202,000 for art and music therapy endowment in 2021 for Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin, TX. Local artists and kids come together to collaborate and make art that local businesses sponsor. This was my 6th time to participate in theArt of Giving, and I already signed up to do it again next year!

The final part of the Art of Giving is called The Giver Gallery. All of the collaborative art pieces created at the Art of Giving are displayed at a local art gallery for a weekend. The sponsors are invited to meet and mingle with the artists and then pluck their piece of art off of the gallery wall to bring to its new home! It is a really fun way to close out the event and see how the final pieces of art turned out.

28 Collaborative Art Ideas

For more collaborative art ideas, don’t miss:

• String art (1st Art of Giving)
• Tissue paper art (2nd Art of Giving)
• Spray bottle and syringe art (3rd of Art of Giving)
• Bleeding tissue paper house (4th Art of Giving)
• Matisse inspired collage  (5th Art of Giving)
• Collaborative painting (6th Art of Giving)
• Paint chip flag art (Created with 100 kids at a Home Depot kids workshop)
• 12 Collaborative art projects (All of the pieces from the 1st Art of Giving)
• 13 Collaborative art projects

1. Becca Borrelli

Becca is an illustrator and professional doodler. She had kids listen to iPods while they watercolored in cool colored tones. She also had salt and straws to give the watercolor unique texture. Becca added her artistic touch after the piece was dry. I love how it turned out!

2. Terry Powell

I love Terry’s art! He lets the kids go wild with paint and then turns their masterpiece into whimsical animals, trees, and flowers after the event.

3. Jamie Dorobek

Way too many details about how to make a collaborative tape painting with kids here.

4. Troy Allen

Troy is known for his interactive art displays. This year he set up a space with a fan, leaf blower and styrofoam balls covered in crayons for kids to play and make art on the white paper taped to the floor. His creation produced 8 pieces of art!

5. Jet Baker

Jet encourages the kids to use paint palette spatulas instead of paint brushes, it was a big hit! This year, his peice was sponsored by Q2, so he used a stencil to guide the kids art. (Q2 sponsored my peice the first year I was involved!) He is also the mastermind behind the nonprofit, Share Art Heal!

6. Jet Baker

One of my favorite things about Jet’s paintings is the first word on the canvas is always “love”. This year he had the kids use paint palette spatulas, and after the event he added wildflowers! Jet’s final painting is the gorgeous red flower in the picture below.

7. Janna Sammon

I personally love her colorful, whimsical style of art, I’d love to have a few of these in our house! Most of the artists uses a 3×3 canvas, but Janna prefers wooden boards for her paintings. She gives the kids a color palette and lets them go wild. I love how she created mini paint brushes with old gift cards. If you look closely you can see how she cut shapes in one end of the Amazon gift cards and let kids use these to make designs in the paint. Genius!

8. Jamie Dorobek

Way too many details on how to make syringe and spray bottle paintings here.

9. Jamie Dorobek

These are the other 3 pieces of art I created with the kids at the Art of Giving. The top 2 are more of the spray paint and syringe paintings. The bottom one with multiple houses was my original idea for the 2017 Art of Giving. After making the bottom piece with Maxwell, I decided against it. It could be a fun collaborative art piece with a little more planning, but I liked the idea of letting kids go wild with syringes better.

10. Elizabeth Bryan-Jacobs

I love how these wings turned out and that they also made a great photo op at the Giver Gallery! Each kid painted a feather at the Art of Giving and she turned the feathers into a bgorgeous set of angel wings.

11. Sylvia Betts

Sylvia created the background, moon, and crow before the Art of Giving. At the event, each child added a star with sparkling star with nail polish!

12. Nancy McMillen

Nancy’s paper creations always amaze me. The kids do prints on paper and the Nancy cuts the paper into strips and to form her art. I love the addition of the paper airplanes in this piece.

13. Sue Moore

 wish I knew more about how this piece was created. At the actual Art of Giving, I’m so busy at my station I don’t always get a chance to see everyone else’s process.

14. Jan Heaton

Jan had the kids watercolor hearts on 2 x 2 sheets of watercolor paper. So simple and sweet.

15. Gil Bruvel

Bruvel turned kids drawings into wooden sculptures to sit on top of one of his iconic masks made out of wood sticks. Incredible!

16. Mila Sketch

Mila turned her painting into coloring sheets and used the finished coloring sheets as inspiration for her painting. If you look closely, you’ll find things like aliens and spaceships, butterflies, and suns that kids added to their coloring sheets! See more of Mila’s process on her Instagram. 

Here are 12 more collaborative art projects for kids! Have you ever made a collaborative art piece with a group of people? I’d love to hear!