Collaborating On Art With A Toddler

Back when my baby was 7 months old, I decided it was time I got back to doing art instead of just thinking about it.

It was with some excitement that I planned an approach to involve my son in my art. The idea I had back then was to allow him to choose his paints, squeeze the colours onto a mini-canvas, place that canvas carefully in a ziplock bag and let him mush the colours around.

It sounded great in theory. In practice, however, it was an exercise in speed, having to snatch away the canvas at the right time where the paint would look like a beautiful piece of abstract art rather than a mess of brown.

We did get some stunning pieces out of it though, some of which I added gold flecks to and another which I drew a gold mandala on.

However my son clearly was not keen on being confined to his highchair to do art. I dropped the idea.

Fast forward to today. As Father’s Day rolled round, I found myself lost as to what to get my partner. He is a thoughtful gift-giver while I am constantly drawing blanks at what to get him.

It then occurred to me that I have a toddler now, and that it might be time to revisit the idea of collaborative art with him. After considering how much time I had to sneakily get this done without my partner knowing, I decided a personalised card that I could work on in bits and pieces would be the best option.

My plan was to use the aforementioned abstract effect on the outside and crayon scribbles on the inside.

We started with the abstract painting. My son was far more involved in selecting his colours this time as compared to when he was younger. However in focusing on my artistic vision, I did not fully think through the practicalities of collaborating with a toddler.

I did not anticipate that he would want access to all the acrylic paints in the box and that without setting up a good form of distraction, it would be difficult to safely take the paints away.

The next phase of the plan involved crayon drawings made by my toddler to be included in the card. It did take a few attempts to teach him how to make marks on paper with crayons. But once he got it, there was no stopping him.

I did have to restrict access to the number of crayons he had because, like paints, these brightly-coloured sticks were consumption risks.

Looking at his scribbles, I decided I would frame his crayon drawings in his handprint. I learnt another lesson in executing that - getting a toddler to place their hand long enough on a piece of paper to trace out their handprint is not easy.

The card turned out amazing, despite the challenges. It was a beautiful, precious experience that I am grateful to have had.

Doing art with a toddler however, is filled with unexpected surprises, even more so than doing it with a baby. As an artist, I am used to doing art with my own vision in mind, letting it flow from me alone. I am also someone who always has a plan in place for what I do.

Collaborating with a toddler means letting that go, because it is their world and their art. I learnt more about going with the flow in working on this card. In fact, our final product was far from what I originally envisioned; yet when I look at it, it seems better because it truly is led by my baby’s art.

But that, after all, is the beauty of collaboration.