Creating Inspiration: Bringing the Outdoors In

The changing of the seasons are quite distinct where we live. Do you bring in the outdoors to inspire your children and/or students- whether it be for art, to document their observations or for play materials? Our children have noticed all the chrysanthemums, celosia and aster amellus on our walks so we used a mum as inspiration to paint. Our son made watercolour flowers using the shapes of various brushes, incorporating the other flowers he had recently seen. What types of blooms can you make with the brush shapes that you have at home? We would love for you to share!

Materials

Inspirational materials (whether it be a type of plant, fallen leaves, a piece of bark etc.)
Watercolour paper
Watercolour paints (we mixed the primary colours to create secondary colours of various shades)
Different kinds of paintbrushes

We always find these items helpful too:

Smock
Craft tray

Directions

Go our for a nature walk, observing the changes in season where you live.

You can set up the invitation to create for your child or work together at it. (For us this project turned out to be 3- fold. Our son tried diluted paints one session, concentrated paints another and then a few days later our he re-visited his paintings, adding further details to create a fairy garden under the blooms- do your children or students come back to a project?)

Don your smock. If you are using primary colours, mix your colours to create your desired shades in a paint tray.

Our son wanted to explore the actual shape of the bristles in creating flowers. First he went with this fan-shaped brush. He experimented with dipping the brush into one colour and then the tips into another to create blooms.