Wooden frame painting is a simple activity even the youngest kids can do, yet the results are lovely, especially when you use liquid watercolors! These make great handmade gifts for Mothers, teachers, and other loved ones.
A few weeks ago, we did the most lovely wooden frame painting in our Toddler Art Group. The kids loved adding the bright, saturated liquid watercolors to the wood and even used oil pastels for some resist art.
And, of course, we made little artworks to put inside the hand-painted frames.
These would make such beautiful end-of-year teacher gifts, Mother’s Day gifts, or Father’s Day gifts! The process is so easy and the finished frames just pop with color!
Wooden Frame Painting with Kids
Materials for frame
Wooden frame – pick them up at any craft store (Jean got these from Michael’s for $1 apiece) or even glue 4 popsicle sticks together to make an easy frame
Liquid watercolors (we also love these) – tempera paint would also work, although the liquid watercolors paint so beautifully on unfinished wood
We also made little drawings to put inside the frames. If you want to use a photo or something your child has already created to fill the frame, just skip this step!
Materials for drawing
Watercolor paper or cardstock cut to fit inside the frame
Oil pastels
Liquid watercolor
Punched out paper shapes (we used hearts)
Glue stick
Step 1: Make something to go in the frame!
We set out small pieces of cardstock with oil pastels to start.
As the kids arrived, they each started drawing. After a few minutes, we added some liquid watercolors for a watercolor resist.
Next, we put out some glue sticks and some paper hearts. We punched them out using this heart punch—one of our favorites. Glue is always a hit with this age group (or any age group, really!)
Step 2: Paint your frame
Once kids were finished with their drawings, we gave each one a wooden frame to decorate. The oil pastels, liquid watercolors were still on the table. They dove right in with oil pastels & watercolor; the resist works just as well on wood as on paper!
Emerson even glued hearts to the outside of her frame.
These simple frames use a wooden dowel inserted into a hole in the back to stand up, so they don’t need anything special to hang.
The kids were so proud of their work! I love this photo of Enda showing his off 🙂
I really want to make these for end-of-the-year teacher gifts with a class photo tucked inside. These were my favorite kinds of gifts to receive when I used to teach preschool!
Melissa Garrett is a parent, teacher, social worker, mess maker and lover of art supplies. She has a host of experience teaching and working with lots of different age groups, especially preschoolers. She also has a background in music and loves to integrate sound and art into the classroom and everyday life as much as possible.
Melissa loves open-ended art exploration, sewing with unexpected materials, finding interesting sounds in surprising places, going on forest adventures, and letting kids explore the world at their own pace. She has an 8-year-old daughter who really enjoys being covered with paint from head to toe, a 5-year-old son who is possibly the loudest person alive, and a very patient spouse who balances her chaos.
