What age for oil paints, oil pastels and acrylic paints

[sittingonacornflake]

Random one

I have a bag of the above used paints / pastels. I don't use them. My son is 8mo. I was wondering At what age you'd give children these types of materials and if it was worth keeping them or not? Just conscious they are already open and so if it's years off I probably won't keep them.

er, not 8mo. He'll eat them! Even at 3yo he could put hand to mouth fairly often.

Otherwise, with oil-based, depends how much you like your carpets. 8yrs old might be reasonable, under supervision.

Depends on the child but I would go with about 7 upwards. I've got a fairly responsible 7 year old but I'd be supervising reasonably closely. You wouldn't believe how much kids wave paintbrushes around.

Oil pastels would be ok form about 4 years I reckon. Whenever they've stopped chewing things randomly.

Hmmmmm thanks for sharing the wisdom! I think I'll get rid as no point storing them for that long. What did we do in the days before mumsnet eh?

Oil paints can be stored for more than a decade easily. Acrylics dry out quicker. Keep everything in a tightly closed box and wait for your DS to reveal his inner Van Gogh in his own time.

I let my 5 year old use acrylic paints and have done for a couple of years sat at the dining table with supervision. I'm not so sure about oil paints as they are a rather difficult medium to work with.
Oil pastels just be prepared for a mess but I would let them use them from a couple of years old too. I like encouraging my children to love art as I am an artist myself and I think the younger they start with different materials the better.