Not only once had I heard my friends complaining that their kids keep practicing their artistic skills on those nicely painted walls. This is not very surprising though. Imagine if you are a 2-year-old who just mastered the skills of holding pens and crayons. A white blank wall definitely becomes an amazing canvas to pour your imagination and creativity. But there are some ideas on how to keep your walls spotless without putting off the children’s interest in painting and drawing.
You may set aside a certain part of the wall as an area where the kids can practice their artistic skills. This might be a small area of living room wall or one side of their bedroom walls. The kids are allowed to draw and paint there – only there and not elswhere. The drawback of this method is that you may come to a point when the wall becomes so full of their artwork and they need other media. Besides, once the wall has been filled, it would be less tempting for the kids and they would be more interested in other blank walls.
You can combine this strategy by using the media that are easy to replace. Just try to cover those parts of the wall with large sheets of paper where the kids can draw as they like. When these sheets are full, all you need to do is to replace them with new sheets.
Or you can try a strategy that my mum had when I was a kid. On one side of our living room walls there was an area painted in black. Not the whole wall, just up to our height as children. Then she provided chalks of different colors and we could spend the whole day drawing, erasing and drawing again. I also remembered using that black wall to practice my spelling and handwriting.
As the children get older, it will be much easier to teach them that they should draw and paint on the paper – and not on the wall. At this stage the walls in your home still have an important role, as the place where you could display the children’s artwork. You can boost your children’s confidence and make your home beautiful at the same time.