Easy Process Art Painting with Q-tips

Painting Warm and Cool Colors

As winter strikes, I know you are looking for activities that will offer you some sort peace and quiet while you sit inside in the heat. I know this because I am also looking for them. Last week I asked my neighbor if her daughter could come help mine test out an easy process art activity for some local art classes I will be teaching this winter. I am telling you, this process art project for my daughter (5) and her friend (4) turned into 40 full minutes of quiet painting! They would have gone longer if I hadn’t butted in and made my own flower, which then prompted them to want to make realistic drawings, and killed the mood, lol.

I know it is going to sound like a messy activity. But somehow using q-tips to paint with liquid watercolors made it much less messy than painting with brushes. I kept two little glass cups on the table and that also helped with the mess. One had clean q-tips on it, and the other was for when the q-tips had absorbed too much paint. So, here is everything you need to do this at home.

Art Supplies You’ll Need

The links below are all Amazon affiliate links! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting my blog and free content! To recreate this easy process art project with q-tips, you’ll need:

Liquid watercolors like these, or fluorescent like these. They are very concentrated, you mix them with a bit of water. You can also try watered-down food coloring.
9×12 watercolor paper cut down to 3×4” pieces
Q-tips (as brushes)
(optional) A paper cutter (to quickly cut 9×12” paper down to size)
(optional) Oil Pastels to level up the activity
(optional but also, I recommend it, lol) A waterproof table cloth or a roll of paper to cover your table. We did get a bit of paint behind our paper as we painted to the edges.

How to Set Up

Cut 9×12” watercolor paper into smaller 3×4” pieces. I used my new paper cutter that my sister bought me for christmas that I am OBSESSED with! I know paper cutters are scary. This one has a blade lock PLUS the blade doesn’t just fall down like a guillotine, you have to press it to have the blade go down! It has saved me a surprising amount of time on the daily because my daughter loves uses various sizes of paper! Anyways, the smaller paper size makes it less overwhelming for young artists and allows them to create multiple mini masterpieces. I gave each girl around 9 pieces of paper. In hindsight I would put out less at first, so they aren’t tempted to fly through the paper.
Set out liquid watercolors in warm and cool tones in separate containers. Here is my favorite liquid watercolor hack! I buy $1.25 muffin pans from the dollar tree, and their $1.25 10-pack of small circular tupperware, which PERFECTLY inside the muffin pans. That way I can store the watercolors when done, and they have less chance of spilling! I have a rule that the containers do not leave the muffin pan. The muffin pan catches any spills. I then take a piece of colored tape or acrylic paint marker and mark in front of each color so children know what they are. Liquid watercolors look quite dark even when diluted and it is hard to tell their colors apart. For this I placed all the warm colors on one side (red, orange, yellow), and cool (blue, green, violet) on the other.
I put two Q-tips in each liquid watercolor container as paintbrushes. I also put a handful of extra clean ones in a glass cup, and had an empty glass cup for dirty ones.

Beginning the experience and tossing in a lesson

Before the painting began, I talked to the girls about warm and cool colors. I asked them what colors they thought of when I said the word warm or cool. Warm colors include reds, oranges, and yellows, while cool colors consist of blues, greens, and purples. THey mentioned col made them think of Elsa, which made them think of blue. Loved that. Warm made them think of fire and red. ✅ I also explained how sticking to one color family (warm or cool in this case) helps prevent the colors from blending into a muddy neutral tone. Typically when working with a color wheel, when we combine two colors opposite one another on the color wheel, they make what is called a “chromatic neutral” AKA that muddy color that isn’t quite just gray, black, or brown.

The girls loved experimenting with the liquid watercolors and quickly understood how the colors worked together. Watching them discover that their paintings stayed vibrant as they followed the warm or cool color rule was so fun! Then, when they started to go through the paper faster and I sensed boredom coming, I added oil pastels to the table and told them to try drawing with oil pastels first, then layering the colors on. As in this and this project, the oil patels will resist the watercolors!

Why This Project Works

This project encourages exploration and creative problem solving. It also kept them fully engaged for 40 minutes—a super win in my book! I think the small piece of paper combined with the new, small “brush” is what makes this so captivating. The q-tip doesn’t hold as much paint as a brush, so it takes more time to fill the paper and slows the process down.

Inspiration and Additional Resources

I got the idea for this project from Barbara Rucci’s book, Art Workshop for Children. It’s a nice little treasure trove of creative ideas that encourage open-ended exploration and play. If you’re looking to dive deeper into process art, I can’t recommend it enough! If you need more ideas now, try the following easy at projects at home, and then get yourself a free copy of “Ultimate Guide to Age-Appropriate Art Supplies for Kids.”

Ready to try this with your kids? Click on the links above to grab everything you need, or pin this for later and don’t forget to share your creations in the comments below or on social media!