Paint not your thing?
Here are some other affordable, fun, and colorful alternatives!
Crayons
Crayons are amazing, low-budget, and versatile. They also leave no residue on hands.
Caran D’Ache (Fancy)
Color Sticks
An alternative to crayons and just as inexpensive. I’ve been impressed—especially when paired with black or colored paper! Leaves no residue on hands. Same formula as colored pencils, but without the wood. Pentagonal shape is easy to hold and keeps them from rolling off the table.
Dry & Wet Erase Markers
These glide nicely on windows, are fun colors, and are easy to clean up with a dry or wet towel respectively. No paper floating around your house when using wipeable surfaces for drawing time!
Chalk Markers
These work great on chalk boards, windows, and dark colored paper. Unlike traditional talc sticks, these are dustless. They need a few more passes with a wet towel than wet erase markers do for clean-up.
Oil Pastels
These glide across paper like butter with no scratching feeling or sound, blend tremendously, and are a favorite among many children. This product does leave residue on hands.
Conté Crayons
Has a consistency similar to compressed charcoal sticks. Colored varieties especially resemble chalk pastels. Usually leaves residue on hands—check product descriptions and reviews. They do have a scratchy feel to them when marking on paper. Yield beautiful results on colored papers!
Colored Pencils
Nothing beats the ease of colored pencils. This is a great alternative to painting in your nature notebook or regular sketchbook. Remember to bring a pencil sharpener and a pencil case if you take them in the field.
Calligraphy Cloth or Slate
This product uses only water and paintbrush! No mess. Each mark you make fades and the calligraphy cloth and slate are reusable thousands of times!
Calligraphy Cloth (Choose grid or none)
Buddha Board (An inkless drawing slate)
Clay
Building and sculpting in clay is like drawing, but in 3D. Earth clays are messier and dry out if you leave them in the open air. Oil-based clays like Clayette never dry out and don’t leave residue on hands.
Terra Cotta (air dry earth clay)
Clayette (oil-based clay)