Painting Leaves
I recently saw a wonderful post on Coffee Cups and Crayons: Leaf Chalk Art. They have the same problem we have – a lack of fall leaves! This inspired them to paint leaves with chalk markers. So beautiful!
On our next walk, we found some nice fresh leaves and broke out our tempera and acrylic paint immediately when we came home.
This Painting Leaves art activity was so simple and fun and had beautiful results!
(E was 4 years and 10 months old.)
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Materials for Painting Leaves
- Fresh leaves.
- Tempera paint and/or acrylic paint.
- Paintbrush(es).
- Tray, cookie sheet or similar to work on.
- Something to hold the paint. We like paper plates when there’s a lot of different colors and/or only a small amount of each color. For fewer colors, we often use muffin tins or apple sauce cups.
E picked out all the colors she liked from our tempera and acrylic paints and squeezed a small amount of each onto a paper plate. She chose her favorite leaf and got to work.
She really enjoyed the unusual painting surface and painted one leaf after the other. She was so proud of her artwork!
I painted one leaf myself in between trying to keep N from pulling down the tablecloth, and since I decided to use dots in my design, E gave it a try herself. She soon chose to paint over them again, though 😉
While all this fun was going on,
N figured out how to climb up on a chair which gives him access to the tabletop… There go my quiet moments 😉
E would’ve happily kept painting more leaves if we hadn’t already been late for dinner.
I was thinking about possibly trying to laminate the painted leaves to preserve them but didn’t follow through. As they were, the leaves predictably dried out within a day or two, and the paint started flaking off, so unless you take extra steps to preserve them, keep in mind that this is definitely process art. Enjoy it while it lasts 🙂
Have you tried painting leaves? Do you have fall leaves where you live? How do you use them? Leave a comment below to let me know!
Here are a few more simple painting activities you might like:
Colorful Circles Collage Process Art
And some other activities using items from nature:
Nature Exploration on a Mirror
Pine Cones and Acorns in the Water Table
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They look awesome! We are going to have to trying painting too!
Thank you for the kind words and the awesome inspiration!
We’re going to do this today. I wonder if Mod Podge would preserve them. They’re SO pretty. Great idea!!
Awesome! Great idea with the mod podge, that may indeed work! Let me know how it goes if you try.
We have beautiful fall leaves in Oklahoma. I collected some beautiful ones two years ago and dipped them in melted wax. I used “gulf wax”, for canning, from the grocery store. I melted it in a baby crockpot. I then hung them above our dining table for fall decorations. They looked so good when it was time to put up the Christmas decorations, I saved them. I used them again the next year. The colors were not as vibrant, but they were still supple enough with the wax to not crumble. I bet you could do the same with the painted ones
Oooh, that sounds awesome! Thanks for the idea, Susie, we’re going to try that next time 🙂