Leaf & Flower Printing
I am lucky enough that I live in a home with plenty of outside space where I can enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. I am happiest outdoors, and like many of my favourite artists, am most inspired by nature. For this activity, we are going to use leaves, flowers and grass to create an artwork.
You can use pressed or tube watercolours for this activity. Test how more vs. less water on your brush affects the intensity of colour.
The process...
1. Head outside and collect some fresh green leaves - The flatter, the better. They'll need to be soft and pliable, not dry and crunchy
2. You'll need to use watercolour paper for this project. We're going to use lots of water, so copy paper just wont do. Make sure you're working on the textured side of the paper.
3. Take a littletime to consider the layout of your leaves & flowers. If you're like me, you might like to skip this step and see what happens if you place the foliage down randomly.
4. Paint your page using a wash brush. This is the widest brush in your watercolour kit. Paint will mostly stay in the area that you first paint with water, so consider whether you would like your artwork to bleed to the edge of the paper, or be contained within a border.
5. Still using your wash brush, use one or two colours to paint large sections of the paper.
6. Switch to a medium size brush and load it up with paint. Add splotches and drips of colour. This should be fun and quick.
7. While the paint is still VERY wet, place your flowers and foliage on the paper.
8. Now comes the hard part! Let the leaves & flowers imprint into on your artwork until the paint is completely. It's temptingto pull them off early, but try to be patient, because if you remove the foliage too early, you wont get the full effect. You may even need to wait until the next day.
9. Carefully clean and pack away all your art materials.
10. Remove your foliage, and admire your masterpiece!
You can use your Creative Kids Vouchers to attend the Watercolour online workshops