Art Fun with Old Medicine Droppers and Homemade Paint

For our Wonderful World of Wednesday activity a few weeks ago, we tried using old medicine droppers and food coloring to make colorful paintings. Again, it didn’t exactly turn out the way I envisioned it but the toddlers were able to create their own unique artwork. Aside from enhancing their creativity, this activity is also a great exercise for developing their fine-motor skills. Jade turned three years old this month and is already quite adept with her pinching skills. She was able to handle the medicine dropper quite well. Jakei needed more practice but was able to use the dropper with minor assistance.

If you would like to try this activity with your little ones, make sure that they are wearing frocks or old clothes and that their work table is covered with a thick stack of old newspapers. Prepare the following beforehand:

Used medicine droppers. We used the ones from their empty vitamin bottles. If your kids have long-said goodbye to medicine droppers, you may try using drinking straws.

Homemade paint (blue, red, yellow). I made ours by adding a few drops of food coloring to a mixture of water and vinegar. The vinegar makes the color more vivid. You may also add some cornstarch to make the paint thicker.

Oslo paper.

Old newspapers for covering the work table and cleaning up spills.

Once you’re all set, instruct the kids to use the dropper to drop paint on the paper and create whatever comes to mind. The paint I made was a little runny so we ended up smudging and slushing the paint around instead. We tried blowing on the small puddles of paint that Jade “accidentally” spilled on her paper but she still couldn’t blow hard enough. I think it might work for bigger kids though.

This was (again) a pretty messy activity but the toddlers had lots of fun the entire time. We also mixed the colors together and they had fun watching the colors change.

Artwork by Jade

Artwork by Jakei

Comments

  1. Spanish Pinay says

    You can frame them! I’m sure they will be lovely to hang in your kids’ room 🙂 Love the idea.

    Spanish Pinay

    • we made frames with board paper and posted them on our wall. it became a mini-art exhibit for their birthday celebration a week ago. ^_^

  2. great ideas! where to buy food coloring ba?

    • I bought a box of McCormick food coloring from the grocery. You only need a few drops of coloring so the entire box really goes a long way.

  3. thanks for sharing. My youngest has just discovered our watercolor. I guess I’ll try this so he wouldn’t use up his brother’s, haha.

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    • thanks for sniarhg. My youngest has just discovered our watercolor. I guess I’ll try this so he wouldn’t use up his brother’s, haha.