There is inspiration all around us at the moment, to get us thinking and talking about art! I bet all your little ones are already talking about the riot of colours festooned on our deciduous trees in our streets. Take a moment to go outside in the beautiful autumn light and collect a handful of different sized and shaped leaves to use in our resist print, ‘Autumn Inspired Artwork.’
You will need the following:
- A canvas or A3 (or larger) paper
- Two warm acrylic colours to represent Autumn- I used cool yellow and magenta
- Two spray bottles filled with water–just pop some acrylic paint in each bottle so that it can spray
- Your collection of leaves
- A smock or old clothes – for both of you
- A healthy dose of patience!
To begin creating, place your leaves onto your canvas wherever you like….you are the artist! You will need to hold down the leaves with one hand and spray with the other. Little people may need some extra help here! Holding down the leaves ensures that the paint does not go under the leaf as we want to get a nice clear, white resist of the leaves.
It is really important that you start with the lightest colour on the first layer! If you are interested in teaching your little Monet about colour theory, then be very mindful about the colours you choose. Yellow (primary colour) and Red (primary colour) make Orange
(secondary colour) when mixed so you can begin using this language while making your fabulous art piece, as you create a lot of orange in the second layer of this artwork.
So, for the second layer, you move your leaves around slightly, making sure you still have some white under them. I took one of the leaves off my canvas to make sure I had enough room to play with. The second layer is the darker colour (magenta) and you spray that on, remembering to again hold down the leaves as you spray. You do get quite dirty hands! If you are opposed to this, wear gloves! You may find you get some drops that come out of your spray bottle, this is fine…I actually liked the extra effect as it created extra texture and depth to the image.
Then remove your leaves, and voila ….. an artwork that anyone would be pleased to hang on the wall.
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