Plant Dye Paints

How do painters use and manipulate light in their artwork to give emphasis and establish mood and emotion? Pupils will analyze a few examples of landscape and portrait painting in order to explore the how light is used in art, and will...

Nature provides a rainbow of colors at one's fingertips. A hands-on activity uses natural plant materials to create all-natural dyes. Plants range from fruits and vegetables to flowers and greens. After extracting the pigments, eager...

Students investigate the use of soil, an important natural resource in artwork. They experiment by crushing soil particles and adding the different color samples to artist acrylic to create true "earth colors". Using this paint, they...

Students identify local trees and plants by their leaf shapes and structures, foliage patterns, and colors. They recognize different leaf vien structures, and make labeled prints to show each of them. Students study their leaves and...

Aboriginal art is full of symbolism, nature, and original style. Kids use natural symbols, paint, sticks, and cardboard to create a piece inspired by traditional Aboriginal bark painting. Tip: This resource is lacking examples and back...

Using old or donated flowers, little learners create flower prints. They discuss the colors found in nature, paint a background, and then create flowers for their pictures by dipping and pressing real flowers onto their paper. 

Let nature inspire your budding artists. They paint seascapes on actual seashells. First, they observe the seaside, then they paint what they see (image or in person) on the inside of a white shell. 

What makes blue jeans blue? Why indigo, of course. Kids will be dyeing to to get involved in an activity that involves preparing stencils, resist pastes, and indigo dyes for various fabrics.

Pointillism is the focus of a lesson that asks young artists to compare Vance Kirkland's painting style with aboriginal dot art, and then to produce their own piece of dot art.

The clothes you wear are made of fibers that come from many different sources. Some fabrics are made from natural fibers, and some from manufactured or totally synthetic fibers. In this project you'll explore how different fiber types...