I’m always looking for new creative ideas to try out with the boys, and the idea of spinning paint pictures appealed to me as soon as I saw it. We made these using a spinning art machine which allows you to create unique and really effective designs by squeezing paint onto the paper disks as they spin in the machine. I knew the boys would love to try this out.

This is the product that we used : The 4m Spinning Art Machine. See it on Amazon (UK / US)

Here’s what’s included in the box:

Spinning machine

4 paints

20 discs

Also a plastic outer cover for the machine which is not pictured below

This was an ideal after school activity for Z and Mr T (ages 5 and 4) and it’s something that worked really well for two children together, as we found that one could drop the paint while the other was spinning the machine, and then they could switch roles. The machine is kid powered rather than battery powered, which is always good.

They both really enjoyed the process, and loved the results that were created. It gave quite different results from the usual painting activities we would be doing at home, with paint brushes, sponges, hand or potato printing. I actually found it seemed to be less messy too – Although you MUST keep the plastic outer tray on the machine or it would get very messy as the paint does fly off a bit if you spin it fast. With the plastic protector that paint is all contained and the area is kept clean. I also really liked that the machine is manually powered, it does not require any batteries at all. You simply press it, and it goes. It doesn’t need to be pressed with any particular skill or strength, which is good as T was able to manage this fine although he is slightly under the recommended age.

The results come out different every time and give a cool swirly paint splat effect. At first the boys did squeeze a bit too much paint out then they learned to use less. The 4 tubes provided are not very large, so once that paint is used up you may want to refill these. I was also thinking that we could try out adding different substances to the spinning disks like squeezy glitter glue which comes in a similar shaped tube, or even perhaps spraying paint on to the discs from an old household cleaner bottle. There is a lot of potential here to expand and try different ideas with the spinning art machine in your art sessions at home.

If you want to see the machine in action spinning around, have a look at this short video – as you can see Z was quite impressed with the machine.