My three-year-old actually sat still for twenty minutes painting the safari animals, and there was zero mess on the table. The four reusable pages per pad dry fast enough that we flipped back to the jungle one before he lost interest.
My toddler painted all three pads twice in one sitting and there wasn't a single drop of mess on the table. The pages turn white again as they dry, so we've already gotten tons of use out of the same four jungle scenes.
My three-year-old can use these completely solo, which is honestly a miracle — the refillable water pens are easy for her to grip and the pages dry out so she can start over. We've done the jungle pad maybe ten times in the last two days and there's zero mess to clean up.