
Watercolours are a great form of indoor painting. They’re much less mess than poster paint and easy to wipe up if you’re using a plastic mat or lino. They also handily come with a whole palette of colours!
These are great for encouraging creative messy play, colours (and colour mixing), fine motor control, and learning a process. Encourage them to go: paint, paper, water, paint etc. I find an old glass baby food jar ideal for washing brushes. It’s best to put only a tiny amount of water and change it frequently (that way there’s less to clean up if it gets knocked over!).
Watercolours will often come with a small brush. You can also experiment with other brushes, fingers, even a wet wipe will provide cool textures and colour mixing! If you’re toddler loves painting themselves and is going to do so anyway, why not support them in their experiment and try putting our a hand mirror so that they can see what they’re doing.
Supervision, support, encouragement, and modelling is important for toddlers. It can take a while to learn that the brush needs washing or that it’s not a good idea to smear black paint over all the other paint colours on the palette. On the bright side, they’re easy to wipe with a tissue or wet wipe to get back to a ‘purer’ colour.

Wet wipe watercolour painting

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