tips for painting pumpkins with toddlers, babies, kids

Happy Autumn Season!

My favorite autumn art activity to do with my young students is personalizing a beautiful natural pumpkin with paint. They look festive at the front door during the holiday season.

This project is a great alternative to carving pumpkins with a knife which can be a difficult process for children understand.

Listed below are simple instructions I have found work well with young kids. This project is very safe and lots of fun for babies, toddler age kids and preschoolers.

Pumpkin Prep

Any size pumpkin will work!

Try to pick pumpkins that have no blemishes to keep from rotting sooner.

Clean pumpkin gently with soap and water or wipe off with baby wipes.

Let pumpkin air-dry or wipe down with dry cloth before painting.

Prep space for painting

Prepare a space for this painting activity were kids can get messy without worrying about paint spreading.

It’s much easier for your child to paint if the pumpkin is at eye level on a table or sturdy flat surface.

Use a drop cloth or recycled old newsprint to work on.

Everyone working in this area will get messy so you and your child should dress in clothes that can truly get messy. Some paints do not wash off clothes.

 

Art Supplies List

Clothes to get messy in, artist smock or an apron cover-up.

Small paint brushes for little pumpkins and large brushes for the bigger pumpkins.

Sponge and fingers can also work besides using paint brushes.

Water jar for washing brushes and easy clean up.

Napkins for paint brush and paint spills.

I love to have baby wipes handy for quick clean-ups. Baby wipes clean all paints off skin even acrylic.

Artist palettes, paper plates and egg cartons work great for holding paint.

Best paints for pumpkins

Remember this is a seasonal project and will only last the life of the pumpkin. So safe non-toxic paints are perfect for this project.

Kids non-toxic tempera or kids non-toxic acrylics will work best and last long.

I suggest using fall type colors like green, white, red, orange, yellow, brown and purple which all stand out great on a pumpkin.

* Note I recommend you leave black paint out of young children’s paint palettes. The smallest amount of black will turn all colors gray. Your child’s pumpkins will still look wonderful without black paint.

Squeeze out only a quarter size of paint to start with,  and add more paint as you go to manage mess.

I recommended young kids only use are non-toxic water-based type paints like: mineral paints, milk paint, acrylic paint or tempera paint.

Demonstrate simple strokes first in front of child so they can get a good idea how to paint a pumpkin.

Leave the rest to them!

You can even show them how to wash a their paint brush in water jars in-between painting with colors. Young kids will catch on quickly to these tips. Try to let kids have fun painting without adding complicated instructions.

Pumpkins will look great no matter what when they are dry!

Bigger kid ideas to paint

Paint cute eyes over your child’s work once it’s done. Use black so it stands out from all their wonderful colors.

Glue googly eyes on pumpkin when it’s completely dry.

Use recycle scraps to make fun facial features.

Attach raw veggies from garden to make funny faces.

Paint fun Halloween pictures on your pumpkin!

Purple – Dracula, monsters or bats

Green – witches, goblins or aliens

White – ghosts

puppies, 

Black

spiders, bats, 

Silver – robots, aliens, Brown – bears, owls, fox

Check out my Kids Painting Book:

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