Painting With Sticks and Leaves

Both of my girls really liked this painting project.

Though, they squeal with excitement every single time I get out the paints, so they would really like any project that involved them.

Materials

The materials for this project are really simple.

• Washable paints
• A palette or paper plate
• Construction paper
• Sticks and leaves - Take a little tote bag and go for a walk in your backyard or down the street. Collect a dozen or so tough (not fragile) leaves. Also collect interesting seed pods, sticks, and whatever you find. Sweet gum pods would be great, as would anything with an unusual texture.

How to Paint

This is a project where the act of painting is the point; the finished work of art is much less important. Help your kids to explore the materials and the prints they make, but let them take the lead.

The first thing I did was to give Allie all the materials and some paint and let her figure it out.

She used the sticks as paint brushes, but that was it.

I wanted her to understand that the leaves could also be used to paint, so I painted one and showed her how to use it as a stamp.

She liked that idea and continued to make leaf prints and use the sticks as paintbrushes.

As long as she was having fun, I let her play with her materials.

Painting stops when she paints herself.

It happens every single time we get the paints out. I'm not sure if that's her sign to me that she's finished or if she just can't help herself. Either way, painting herself means that painting time has ended.

I hung her finished painting on our art wall (which is also our china cabinet) so she could see it for a few weeks. She never mentioned it, so she might not have noticed or remembered that it was hers.