The painting studio

Brushes in hand, a boy and a girl paint a unicorn together on an easel, surrounded by paint pots and brushes.

Recommended age: Ages 6 and up · an hour, often over two days
Theme: Unicorns

A4 landscape · no watermark · no signup

A painting for four hands

In the studio, a boy in short overalls and a girl with pigtails tied with bows are painting together at the same easel. The picture shows a trotting unicorn, its mane flying and stars on its side. Each holds a brush: the boy paints near the chest, the girl near the mane. A sign on the wall reads “ATELIER ART” — French for “art studio” — between a garland of pennants and a hanging palette.

All the painter’s supplies

The shelves are overflowing with supplies: a jar of brushes, a roll of paper, a box of crayons marked with a star, a palette full of colors, a small watering can, a potted plant, a roll of tape and a stack of paper. On the floor wait three paint pots, two with a brush dipped in, a sponge and a few puddles. A real studio, where it’s fine to get a little messy.

A page full of details

At six, children love pages full of little things, and this one has plenty: each brush in the jar, each crayon in the box, each pennant on the garland is a space of its own. The two children and the easel make up the big areas in the middle. The painting is a picture within the picture: it can be colored like a real painting, in colors different from the rest of the page.

Three pots, three colors

The three pots on the floor can hold the painter’s three basic colors: red, yellow and blue. From them, the puddles and the palette can show their mixes: orange, green, purple. Just for fun, you can even add a few paint spots to the boy’s overalls, as after a real painting session.

A word for the grown-up: bring out three pots of tempera paint, red, yellow and blue, and let your child mix two colors at a time on a plate. At six, discovering that yellow and blue make green is still a little moment of magic.