Giving your child the opportunity to try painting on foil can be a great alternative to offering them standard white paper. Children learn very quickly that paint on foil responds quite differently to what they are used to and that the foil medium is very fragile.
I’m all for setting up creative stations for my kids that are simple and is of interest to my two girls, Possum (aged 5.5 years) and Boo (2.5 years). This particular painting on foil activity was a massive hit and one that I should have tried long ago. Now that I think of it, Kate from Picklebums did this activity with her children a short while ago.
Recommended ages: 2 years +
(Strict and active supervision required)
Painting on Foil
For this activity you will need –
I simply wrapped a piece of tin foil around a cutting board so that my girls had a solid surface to paint on. I then set them to be as creative with the paints as they wanted to be. It was so beautiful to watch them paint.
The paint responds so wonderfully to the foil. We used fluro paints, which really made the colours pop and almost look like they’d glow in the dark!
Possum has a thing for rainbows at the moment so I wasn’t surprised that this was one of the first things that she decided to paint. The foil seemed to sparkle behind it and made the rainbow almost look 3 dimensional.
Suitable for toddlers and beyond!
I love that this activity suits almost all ages. At the beginning Boo was a little aggressive with the paints and tore a few edges of the tin foil. She learnt quite quickly, however, that she needed to be gentle with the fragile tin foil surface.
Fine Motor Skills
I gave my girls q-tips to use with the paint as I thought they would be most suitable for the tin foil surface. I was pleased that I did offer it to them because they held the paint very well and left smooth lines on the tin foil.
This was also great for helping build fine motor skills.
The girls had a wonderful time making all sorts of pictures and experimenting with different strokes.
These pieces were going to be a little too hard to frame, however if you glued it to a piece of cardboard you could certainly have them on display.
I would highly recommend this unique painting activity for your kids. Painting on foil is lots of fun and the colours really pop off the page. It’s great for all ages and can be helpful as a calming down technique.
Would your child enjoy painting on foil?
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Did you have a problem with the paint chipping off
Hi Michele,
Great question! No I didn’t have that problem because the paint I used was quite thin, however, I do feel you could find it start to chip off if you had a thicker paint and you crumpled the foil.
Thanks for sharing Kate, the effect looks great! May I know which type of paint you used? Are they watercolours?
Great question Carolyn. Watercolour paints would work well. I just used basic kids paint cakes, so they are washable, non toxic and safe. You just add water and go for it. Hahaha