Painting is fun and there's so many ways to do it without paint brushes! Here's a demonstration of one of those ways....Chick Peas!
Using a tray (or some other vessel with edges and a flat bottom), I placed paper down and put liquid watercolours (sub in any watered down paint so that the chick peas can easily roll through it) on the paper.
I chose colours that would mix well together purposely. I also chose to use our coloured Chick Peas and used the colours of chick peas that matched the paint colours for consistency of colours, but any colours work!
The child can choose how much paint, where it goes on the paper, how many chick peas to use and try different strategies to see what happens! They're little scientists in this activity. If your child is able they can place the paint, or if they're younger you can assist them.
Once they've put the chick peas and paint in is the really fun part! Moving the tray around to get the chick peas to roll, shaking it a little to see what happens, they're learning things like momentum and how imperfectly round objects behave, and building muscles and motor skills at the same time!
Bonus tip: to avoid waste use the same chick peas for multiple pictures! Once you're done you can rinse them off and let them air dry on a tray and use them again next time!