Big and Easy Art Project Ideas for Kids

Get excited to try some big, easy art project ideas with your child and learn the lifetime benefits of creativity on a big scale! You’ll love these simple ways to use common supplies to nourish your child’s creativity in a big way!

Why Kids Benefit from These Big, Easy Art Project Ideas

The short answer to “why should my kids engage in big art?” is that it’s fun and it’s really good for them – so good for them that they will likely reap a lifetime of benefits from it!

This report by Durham University offers some valuable insights into the idea that nourishing creativity across all subjects is essential for success over a lifetime of learning, and eventually contributing to society.

Take a minute and picture your little one grown up and changing the world, *cue the teary eyes*. It’s going to happen – our kids are going to grow up!

Not only is creativity essential to their academic success, creativity is essential to your child being successful at whatever they might grow up to be: a software engineer, a 2nd grade teacher, a diesel mechanic, a stay-at-home parent, an entrepreneur, or anything else they dream up!

Creativity is the ability to look at a problem more than one way. It’s a sense of curiosity and experimentation. Creativity is also a sense of freedom to try, fail, and try again – without feeling like a failure.

Dramatic play, active learning games, and reading a wide variety of books can all strengthen your child’s creative muscle.

Children should also be introduced to different, new ways to express themselves creatively and that’s where big art comes in!

What is “Big Art”?

Big art is exactly what is sounds like – a large scale art project! This absolutely does NOT mean you need to spend $50+ on a giant canvas – there are a wide variety of affordable (most are free!) ways you can let your child create big art without a big investment.

One fun thing I enjoy about big art is if you have more than one child working together, it inspires them to create collaboratively! I like to introduce variety and have the kids make their own BIG creations sometimes and other times work together.

Ready? Let’s do this!

Big & Easy Art Project Ideas for Kids

What should the “canvas” be for a big art project? What medium should your child be working with? Get creative with the surfaces and materials already all around you!

Recycled Cardboard Box Big Art Canvas

I bought that trendy tree shelf from Costco (IYKYK), and even though the outside of the box was covered in labels and branding, a simple box cutter did the trick.

I cut out the two large panels of the box to use as our canvases. Exercising my own creative muscle, I saved the smaller pieces of cardboard to make our own painting tools (more on that later)!

Regular, washable tempera paint works great. To add an extra fun element, sprinkling dry, colored sand over the wet paint creates a cool effect too!

Our most recent big art project involved a cardboard “canvas,” shaving cream (the cheap stuff from the dollar store!), and liquid watercolors. If you think that $25 seems like a lot for 6 bottles of liquid watercolors, rest assured – I’ve been using this same set for many of our art projects (and rainbow rice!) for almost 4 years at the time of writing this post! Worth EVERY penny.

First, I had the kids spray and smear a thick layer of shaving cream all over their canvas.

Next, I squirt some liquid watercolors on the shaving cream.

Then I let the kids mix! At first they used our handmade “paint combs” which were just Q-tips with one end stuck inside small pieces of cardboard.

Then they started working with their hands.

I thought the final project was so fun! It looks like a super official piece of modern art and I put it up with a previous big art project in our kitchen! We also used the colored shaving cream to dye some paper and make our own marbled paper!

Big Window or Sliding Glass Door Big Art

Washable paint + a big glass window or door = big fun!

Technically you can use any paint – even use a non-washable paint like acrylic. You’d just have to scrape it off the glass after (using a tool like this) and make sure to cover the ground.

Washable paint has easy soap and water clean up! If you mix the paint with a little bit of washable school glue it creates a fun stained glass effect.

But guess what? If you don’t have the time to deal with paint today (washable or not) you can still let your kids experiment with other mediums on a glass door or window!

Offer your child some regular washable markers and some dry erase markers (I recently switched to the Amazon basics ones!) to experiment with what works best on the glass – both will wipe off easily with a damp cloth!

I highly recommend getting some action with the paints too at some point! Something really changes for kids when they have a big huge space to fill – my kids approach painting big surfaces differently than small ones and it brings me a lot of joy to see them engaging creatively in new ways!

Using a Fence, Driveway, or Sidewalk for Easy Art Projects

Have you ever considered your fence or outdoor wall as an art canvas? Give your kid a bucket of water and some paintbrushes and let them “paint” art on the fence with water. It will disappear as it dries so zero clean up for you!

You’ve likely used your driveway or sidewalk for chalk – but what about some simple homemade chalk paint? You can also give your child ice cubes to “paint” with on the sidewalk – this works especially well when it’s hot outside!

More Fun Art Ideas: