PAINTING WITH NATURE

Fall is a gorgeous time of year and I love to get the kids outside interacting with Nature. If your kids are like mine, your house is probably bursting with piles of buck eyes, pine cones and other natural goodies that they’ve collected on their walks!

Well, what to do with all of their natural treasures? My kids have loved using buck eyes for maths, pine cones for making cute birds and crafting little buddies with sticks to name just a few!

Today I’m sharing a Painting With Nature activity with you. I love how simple this Fall painting idea is and that it’s a great way for kids to explore textures and patterns in a fun open-ended and hands-on way.

Painting with Nature is an exciting process art technique allowing kids to explore textures and patterns in a fun and open-ended way. — Painting With Nature

Supplies For A Painting With Nature Activity

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Pine cones and buck eyes (conkers UK) etc.
Paint US / UK
Paper
A large container such as a baking tray or cardboard box.
A muffin tin for your paints.

How To Set Up A Painting With Nature Process Art Activity

There should be no right or wrong way to go about an activity like this and I love to let children find their own way to explore and create. The basic principle is to apply paint to the natural items and tip and turn the tray to roll them along the paper. Painting with natural things the children have found is a great way for them to explore patterns and textures as each item will leave a different trail on the paper.

This activity gives us a wonderful opportunity for children to get outside and choose and collect natural items to paint with. Here we’ve demonstrated painting with buck eyes and pine cones but kids might like to choose pebbles, acorns, or even empty snail shells!

Before starting this painting activity I love to encourage kids to really look closely at all the natural items and think about their shapes, colours and textures. A magnifying glass is a great addition and there’s lots of wonderful chatting and vocabulary building opportunities there.

Once you’re ready to start painting with nature simply line the bottom of your cardboard box or baking tray with paper and provide some paints. I like putting the paints into a muffin tin and I provide brushes and spoons so the children can decide how they want to do the activity. It’s really interesting to see how different children approach the set up.

Possible Ways For Kids to Paint With Nature:

Some children spooned paint onto their pinecones and then rolled them along the paper.
Some children dipped their buckeyes into the paint and then rolled them on the paper.
Some children put paint onto the paper first and then rolled their nature finds through it.
Some children just wanted to paint the nature items and didn’t use the paper at all.
Some children like to use one colour at a time others like to use two or more.
Some children enjoy mixing and merging the colours and others prefer to keep each one completely seperate.

I love how this painting activity can be approached in so many different ways creating beautiful and unique paintings of patterns and textures, and even the painted natural items look pretty too!

Would your children enjoy painting with nature? What natural finds would they choose to use?

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