Collaborative Painting

The Art of Giving is one of my favorite events of the year! I did not participate in 2020 because well, that was a hard year for the world. I’m excited to be back and making a collaborative painting to donate for my 6th Art of Giving! In years past, I make collaborative art projects with kids at Dell Children’s Hospital. This year, the event was done virtually, so only my kids were able to participate in our collaborative painting. Fingers crossed we are able to hold the event at hospital for 100’s of kids to enjoy!

Here are my collaborative art projects from years past:

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)

Materials needed for a collaborative painting

Large canvas, we used a 3×3
White spray paint
Painters tape
6 paint colors (I used this set of metallic acrylic paint!)
Paper plates
Paint brushes
Drop cloth
Yard stick
Pencil

How to make a collaborative painting with kids

Step 1- Spray paint the canvas

I spray painted the canvas white first because I was using a second hand canvas. This turned out to be useful because it made cleaning up the lines at the end less noticeable since there was already a base coat on the canvas.

Step 2- Tape the lines

I used the width of the blue painters tape as my measuring stick for space between the lines. The painters tape I used was 1.5 inches wide. I recommend that width because it gives kids more space to potentially paint over the line. I decided on 7 painted lines because that is what worked best with this size canvas and painters tape width. To ensure my tape lines were straight, I used a yard stick and a pencil to mark 1.5 inches down each side of the canvas. Then, I adhered the tape to the canvas on the corresponding pencil marks.

Step 3- Paint

This was my kids job! I gave each kid one paint brush and one color at a time and instructed them to paint from the top to the bottom of the tape. Also, make sure and mention not to paint in the white space above or below the tape. We used this 6 pack of acrylic metallic paint. I decided to swap the silver in the 6 pack out for “deep magenta” because my daughter loves pink and there was not a pink the the pack.

Step 4- Peel the tape

Let the paint dry 6 or more hours and then peel the tape lines! This is the best part! My daughter loved peeling the tape off to reveal her masterpeice. For some paint peeling therapy, check out this video.

Step 5- Clean up lines

I only had to clean up one line. I used a little white paint and a small brush to paint over the pain the bleed through the painters tape.

My friend, Rachel, did a version of our collaborative tape art painting with her kiddos school and I love how it turned out! There is no wrong way to make art together!