Think about it. What would you create if you were given the opportunity to paint on a blank canvas? Would you choose one color or multiple colors? Would you carefully paint in certain areas not allowing the paint colors to touch or would you mix them together?

Children love to create. Painting is one way that they express themselves freely. Each stroke. Each color. Each moment. They are all ways that children express their feelings and emotions and communicate.

There is a big debate in the Early Childhood world about process versus product art. Product art is comparable to the big bad wolf in that ‘avoiding that is best.’ I mean, who would want to always be shown an example of exactly what to create. Why do all pigs need to be painted pink? What if a child creates a green polka dotted pig that doesn’t really look like a pig……shouldn’t we celebrate that they expressed themselves and created something in the first place?

The ‘process’ in process art refers to the process of completing the masterpiece. So, however the child wants to create they create and with whatever they want to create with. One child may choose to color with crayons while another may choose to paint with a lot of colors. It’s kind of like ‘anything within reason goes.’