Unstructured Creativity - Acrylic Paint

About once a week or so (during warm enough weather), I bring the kids out to the back yard and pretty much just let them go to town using some sort of creative medium. Painting is always a favorite in our house, so I try to come up with different ways to go about it. A few weeks ago we used watercolors and I was so excited when Austin decided to make pictures out of colorful finger prints. I have to admit, the main reason I got so excited about it was because back in high school, I finished a rather large replica of a Micheal Angelo drawing using watercolors, my pinkie finger and some black pastels. For me, I thought I was being original, for him, it was just the way it had to be done for the day. That's one of the things I want to foster in my children, to follow their creative desires. And so, that leads us to our "Unstructured Creativity" time.

I must confess, I did have a slight agenda on this one. I let the kids paint on a large piece of white fabric, with acrylic paints. I gave them black, orange, green and purple to work with.... hmmm.... I was hoping I would end up with some sort of super cute little kid piece of artwork to turn into a Halloween decoration later. We ended up with a few very large blackish brown blobs, lol. They had a great time though, and that's all that really matters.

Do you have unstructured creative activities you do with your children? Please share, I'm always looking for more ideas :)

Take care!