This is a great summer activity. Just get some craft or poster paint of many colors, some paintbrushes, and old unwanted newspapers that you've been saving to put into the recycling bin. We use plain newsprint in school for drawing and painting. The news is printed on the very same paper. So what if there's black lettering on it. It makes for some pretty interesting designs and gives the composition some "depth". This could be an up and coming trend in the arts called newspaper paintings! The working area ( a sheet of newspaper) is nice and big, so encourage the kids to express themselves in a big and colorful way.
I just thought of something else....maybe the "artist" could choose an article on a sheet of newspaper and do a representative painting of it. (covering the whole sheet) Some kids may like to represent 2 or 3 articles on one newspaper sheet. In this case, more than one painting would be on the one sheet. See more narrative under picture.
This delicious painting was done on a page of this newspaper that had a few dessert recipes.The crossword might have inspired someone to do some large stylized lettering in bold colors.