Creative Challenge 2
Title:
Nature Painting
Artform:
Visual arts – painting
Challenge:
In this activity you will learn how you can make your own paints from natural materials, including berries, spices and even soil!
Resources:
Natural pigments - charcoal and chalk are both natural materials and work very well for this activity if you have access to them. Ground spices such as turmeric, nutmeg or paprika will give a lovely range of oranges. Coffee, ground or instant will work well for brown. Vegetables such as red cabbage or beetroot will give you some beautiful purples as will blackberries. Try raspberries for a lovely pink/red colour
Binding medium – such as, runny honey or golden syrup for a ‘natural’ options or PVA Glue
Pestle and mortar (OPTIONAL) – if you need to crush your natural material to create a powder or liquid (berries, veggies, soil samples for example)
White vinegar and salt (OPTIONAL) if you’re using berries other fruits or veggies, your paint will fade over time – adding white vinegar and salt help to ‘preserve’ the colour and stop it from fading
Water – you’ll need to add small amounts of water to your paints to make them ‘flow’.
Pot(s) to mix paint in – yoghurt pots are great but any pot will do
Some suitable brushes – it doesn’t have to be an art brush if you don’t have them; a pastry brush, old tooth brush or a decorators brush would all do the trick!
Something to paint on – paper would be the obvious choice, but you could also use recycled cardboard packaging, a piece of old fabric or a piece of wood. Always check with an adult to see what it’s ok to use, they can help you select something
Getting started:
http://artspacecinderford.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Nature-Paints-Guide.pdf
Find out:
Artist: Warren Day is a landscape painter.
He mainly paints different landscapes in the Forest of Dean, using gouache. He also includes ‘earth samples’ within his work to create extra texture and interest to the piece and further tie them to the landscape they depict.
Share:
Please share work with Cinderford Artspace by posting your work on our facebook page; www.facebook.com/artspacecinderford. We will also show your work in our online Gallery on our website. To enter our gallery, please send a photo of your work, with a brief description to: dan@artspacecinderford.org
Extra Challenges:
Other resource guides are available from our website here http://artspacecinderford.org/.
We also set weekly arty ‘challenges’ through our Facebook page and invite people to submit their work to our online gallery.
