Toddler Art Project – Smoosh Painting on an Old Canvas

What can you do with an old canvas or out-dated picture that you no longer want hanging in your home?  Try smoosh painting – one of my favourite art techniques for kids to transform it into a new, one-of-a-kind piece of art!

We love upcycling and repurposing things around here.  Before I throw almost anything out, I stop and think of how we might be able to re-use the item for an art or craft project.  It’s a great way to save things from going to landfill, and also a super way to save money when it comes to our art and craft supplies.

If you were impressed with yesterday’s recycled toddler art project, I think you’ll love how we’ve re-purposed this old picture and created a piece of custom “smoosh art” for our playroom.

What we used as a canvas for our recycled art:

Our canvas started off as a Ferarri poster board that hung on my son’s bedroom wall for years. He had taken it down, and I was planning to drop it off at Value Village with some clothes my guys have outgrown.  One day it dawned on me, that we could prime and paint over the poster board and create a custom piece of art of our own.

It took me a couple of months to come up with the perfect plan for it, but it was so worth the wait. The painting process I chose was a ton of fun for the kids, and our finished piece is really something!

How we made our recycled art:

A few days ago, I rolled a coat of primer over the picture.  I didn’t want any of the original art showing through, and I wanted to be sure our paint would adhere properly to the surface of the poster board.

Today I mixed up some powdered black tempera paint, and the hooligans rolled it over the entire surface of the picture.

It only took a few minutes to dry because I gave it a blast with the hair dryer.  (an old hair dryer in the craft room is handy for speeding up the drying process sometimes)

If you’re wondering about the adorable aprons that the hooligans wear when we’re gettin’ messy, I make them from the legs of worn out jeans.  You can get the tutorial for my  repurposed denim aprons here!

Next, I swirled six circles of acrylic craft paint onto the picture: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.  I actually used several shades of each paint because we we’d be using a smooshing technique which is a great way for kids to experiment with colour mixing.  I topped off each coloured circle with a swirl of white acrylic craft paint.

Then I lightly covered the whole thing with 3 overlapping pieces of cling-wrap, and handed it back over to the hooligans, and they smooshed the whole thing.  When we’ve done smooshing in the past (you can see our Fall Collages here) we’ve really rubbed and smeared the cling wrap around, but today I had the hooligans press down and pat the cling wrap, so the circles wouldn’t get too mixed up with each other.

And now for the big reveal…

Isn’t it gorgeous?

Pair it up with the piece of re-purposed art that the hooligans made yesterday, and now we have 2 collaborative works of art to hang in our playroom.

I actually think this is cool enough to hang on the main floor.  You could totally have your kids make a custom piece of art for your kitchen, living room or a bedroom!

If you wanted it to be a more permanent piece of art, I would suggest using acrylic craft paint rather than tempera paint because you could then brush on a coat of craft sealer/varnish to protect the painting.  Using a matte sealer will give your art work a bit of sheen, and a much richer look as well.

As far as playroom art goes though, I think this piece rocks!

If you’re looking for more ways to decorate with custom, homemade art, check out this fab collection of homemade wall art from Crafts by Amanda.

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