A few weeks ago, I bought the fabulous book - Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media-For Budding Artists of All Ages (Lab Series)
. Leaf prints with watercolor is included in the book as Activity 28. Since we just bought new watercolor paints and the leaves outside are plentiful - this seemed like the perfect fall craft. Here's the scoop:
1. The kids painted designs on thick watercolor paper.
2. While their paintings dried, we walked around the neighborhood, collecting LOTS and LOTS of different fall leaves.
3. We then squirted black paint onto a paper plate and rubbed it smooth using a sponge paint roller.
4. We placed the leaves in the paint, trying to make it as even as possible.
5. Finally, we pressed the painted leaves onto our watercolor prints.
This was a messy messy process, but the kids really seemed to enjoy it (though next time, we may move OUTSIDE for this project, as I sort of panicked when the table started turning black). Anyways, a really fun use for all those fall leaves. Though in the future, I'll probably make the paint even thinner on the plates, for better prints.
Happy Tuesday Everyone!
For T, it all turned into finger-painting at the end.
We did a version of this at our house last week (collected the leaves first, painted on them, and used them more as a stamp - no painting underneath), and sure enough it turned into hand painting and handprints, too.
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