Art Party Games and Activities

Blindfolded Artists

Pair up party guests and blindfold one of each team’s players. Sit the blindfolded artist in front of an easel or table that is set up with your artist’s tools of choice (pencils, crayons, markers, paints). Set a timer for five minutes. Show a picture or object to the team members who are not blindfolded. That player has to describe the item to the blindfolded player (without naming what it is). The blindfolded player has to try and draw or paint it from the descriptions. When time is up, remove the blindfolds and look at the creations. The players switch places, and a new object is used for the second round.

Pass the Picture

Have all of your players sit in a circle around a table. Give each kid a piece of paper and some colored pencils. Have each player write her name on the paper and draw a shape. Pass the papers to the right, and everyone adds on to that shape, trying to make something out of it. Keep passing and adding on until the papers get back to their original owners. Hold them up and see what was created.

Musical Spray Painted Shirts

To play this game, you will need one white shirt per guest and a clothesline long enough to hang them all in a row. Hang the shirts and fill one spray bottle per player with watered-down non-toxic paint, or homemade spray paint (use a different color for each bottle). Give each player a spray bottle and have them each stand in front of a shirt.

Play some music and have the kids circle the shirts while spraying them with the water-paints as they go. When the music stops, they have to switch colors with the players next to them. Keep playing until all of the shirts have been sprayed with a colorful design. Leave the shirts on the line until they are dry, then hand them out as party favors.

Paint Splatter War

If you’re going to play this game, make sure kids come dressed in old clothes they won’t mind staining. Have them gather outside around a few colors of non-toxic paint. Have the players wear goggles, so no paint gets into their eyes. Give them paintbrushes and allow them to spend several minutes just dipping the brushes in the paint and splattering them on each other’s clothes.

Musical Murals

Set up several stations with large sections of paper on the wall (hang some paper from a large roll or use several sheets of poster board). At each station, place a different art medium.

Play some music. Have each kid stand in front of a station and begin creating a mural. When the music stops, you should have everyone move to a new station to continue the work already created on that mural. Play is done when everyone has had a turn at each station.

Paint-by-Numbers Relay Race

Have a color-by-numbers page enlarged to poster size (make two copies). Hang them side-by-side on a wall. Place the paint colors needed to fill in the color-by-numbers sections near the posters. Divide kids into two teams. Give each team a paintbrush. Kids race, one at a time, to use the paintbrush to fill in one section of the poster. When the section is painted, the player must run back to his team, and hand the paintbrush to the next player in line. The first team to paint all of their color-by-numbers sections with the correct colors wins.

Cupcake Palette Decorating

Place a cupcake in the center of a paint palette. Fill the little paint wells with sprinkles and candy bits. Place a set of chopsticks in place of a paintbrush. Kids use these to pick up the “paint” and decorate their dessert.

Crayon Scavenger Hunt

Take a large box of crayons. Divide the crayons into even amounts of groups. Make lists of the names of the colors in each group. Hide the crayons. Divide players into as many teams as you have groups of crayons. Give each team a list. Send them out to find their colors. When they come back with all of the colors on their list, give them a coloring book. You can now have a simple coloring activity, or you can challenge them to race to see which team can be the first to fill in the whole coloring book.

Art Auction

Give the kids play money (all the same amount). Offer a variety of arts and crafts items for sale. Auction them off just as paintings would be auctioned at an art sale. You can also make it a blind auction by wrapping the items so kids can’t see what they are bidding on. If you choose this method, it is always fun to add a couple of gag prizes into the mix.