Easy Peasy Veggie Art!

A couple weeks ago at Open Play at Shastye, we traded our paintbrushes for some freshly cut vegetables. I love making art from whatever I have on hand. The more unlikely the materials, the better in my opinion! I especially encourage this kind of creativity and resourcefulness with kids because there are only so many times they can color or paint in a traditional way without losing interest. They’re destined to get bored, and bored kids are a recipe for disaster, am I right? Soon, they’ll be making their own fun eating a paintbrush, war painting their sibling’s face, or coloring a new marker mural for your entryway.

That week, we kept things fresh—literally​—​with rounds of vibrantly colored mini peppers, slices of mushrooms, and a couple stringy coconuts. As we worked, I realized how much I want to share these kinds of projects with other parents. As a mom, I know I am always in search of something fun to entertain my kids, but I just don’t have the time (or sometimes the patience, admittedly) to prepare elaborate arts and crafts projects for my kids when I’m at home. When I finally do make the time and they decide they’d rather play with the empty Amazon Prime box sitting in the corner, it only reinforces my mentality of “I shouldn’t even bother.”

This is what has inspired me to come up with so many different creative ways to make art, and to start this blog so that you can start making more art with less stress. Any of the projects I share will be minimal in materials, cheap, easy to set up, and provide tons of opportunities to switch gears and keep their young minds engaged for long enough for a tired parent to finish a cup of coffee in relative peace. They’re simple, easy, and fun.

Let’s get started with the very first project, which is painting with veggies. It’s my favorite project to do right before dinner while I’m cutting up fresh produce anyway. Sometimes my daughters snack on their art tools before they get to work, which I always love to see. It’s a great way for them to get some vegetables in their bodies in a no-pressure setting.

When they’re done snacking, I reinforce that going forward, we are not to put the vegetables into our mouths since they will be covered in paint. If your child is very young—or very rebellious (solidarity!)—you can even opt for edible paint. I give them each a palette with the primary colors (blue, red, and yellow, in case you need a refresher). Part of the magic is seeing all the different colors they can make by blending these colors. At the end, I give them a squirt of black and white so they can explore darkening and lightening their colors.

I dole out one vegetable at a time, moving on to the next as they lose interest. It’s so interesting to see all the fun patterns and textures you can get. As you can see, the mini pepper rounds made some beautiful trefoil-like patterns. The stem was the perfect handle for young hands to hold and stamp. The mushroom actually acted like a sponge, soaking up the paint, and was nice both to stamp and spread paint. And the coconut was of course the biggest hit. The kids rolled it back and forth to each other, making great texture across their pages. It was perfect.

The cleanup was as easy as can be. Everything goes right in the trash. With a wash of their hands and a quick wipe of the table, we were done and ready to eat dinner! Interested in more projects like this? Subscribe below! I would also really appreciate it if you could share this post with other parents that might be interested in low-fuss crafts for kids!