Making Leaf Rubbings and Leaf Art

Leaf Rubbings
Although this project sounds easy, it can take kids a bit of practice to get clear details. Don’t give up after one or two attempts.

Go outside and collect some leaves. When possible, use leaves that have fallen on the ground. If that doesn’t give you a good variety, carefully pull leaves from trees and shrubs. Try to limit yourself to one leaf from a plant; remember, plants use their leaves to make their own food. Now, bring the leaves inside or work somewhere outdoors where your materials won’t blow around.

Set one leaf on a table, vein side (bumpy side) facing up; cover the leaf with a piece of paper. Hold the paper in place with one hand. Now, take a crayon and hold it sideways so you can rub the length of the crayon over the section of the paper covering the leaf. The crayon should reveal the shape and texture of the leaf on the paper.

If you can’t see the details of the leaf, press down harder with the crayon. If the outline and veins are doubled or fuzzy it probably means that you shifted the paper while rubbing the crayon over it. Sometimes it takes two, three, or even six tries to get a really nice looking leaf rubbing. The leaves shouldn’t get harmed by the process, so you can practice as much as you need.

What to Do with Leaf Rubbings
• Cut out the leaves and layer them into a collage. Use small pieces of double-sided foam tape behind a few of the leaves to add some depth to the collage.
• Cut out a leaf and write a poem on the back of the leaf. Punch a hole in the leaf and add a piece of string or yarn so the leaves can be hung.
• Mount the leaf rubbing on a piece of cardstock and cut out the shape. Glue a magnet on the back and attach to the refrigerator or another magnetic surface.
• Try doing a leaf rubbing on a colored piece of paper with a contrasting color crayon for variety.
• Cut out the leaves and layer them around the edges of an inexpensive picture frame.
• Create a matching game. Do two leaf rubbings of each shape leaf. Cut out the leaves and glue them onto two index cards. Try to make a set of at least twelve cards with six matches. Shuffle the cards and set them picture-side down on the table or floor. Players take turns flipping over two cards looking for a match. The player with the most matches wins that round.

Resist Paintings
Add another level of interest to texture rubbings by painting over the page.
Do crayon texture rubbings of leaves, bark, or manmade objects. Cover a lot of the paper with texture rubbings, but avoid having the different shapes overlap. It is okay if just a corner of a leaf is on the page. Now, go over the entire page with watercolor paints. You can use one color of paint or use several colors, painting splotches of color here and there. The wax crayon will resist the watercolor paint while the paint adheres to the paper. Paint over the entire piece of paper.

Another way of doing a resist painting is to draw a simple line picture with crayons (because the pencil marks could show through the crayon, you’ll have to draw with the crayons). Then paint over the entire picture with watercolors. To show off the resist, you will have to carry the paint over the lines. Otherwise, you’ll look like you are painting a coloring book page. Have fun with showing off the resist effect.

For a third option, draw with crayon a picture of your backyard or a place in nature that you love. Don’t color the sky, but you can add a few wispy clouds with white crayon. Paint over the entire scene with a mixture of blue, violet and black to make the scene a night scene.

Texture rubbings are a great way to reveal the details of leaves that you and your kids might not otherwise notice. This isn't just an autumn leaf project - you can do this during any season you can gather leaves.

Make Leaf Silhouette Artwork

Create a sort of reverse print by capturing the negative space, or the area around the leaf.

Even if you don’t live in area where you get to collect autumn-bright leaves, there are still plenty of art projects that feature leaves. Here’s one to get you started. You want to go out and gather leaves with a variety of shapes.

There are several ways to show off the silhouette, or outline, of a leaf. Set a leaf on a piece of paper and hold it in place with one hand. Then try one of these following techniques,

• Dip a paintbrush in watercolors, poster paints, or tempera paints. Starting on the leaf, paint over the edge of the leaf onto the paper, extending the brush strokes as far as desired.
• Dip a cut sponge in paint and dab the sponge along the outline of the leaf.
• Dip an old toothbrush in paint. Then run the handle of a paintbrush along the bristles of the toothbrush. The paint will spatter and fall around the outline of the brush. (You won’t hold the leaf in place with your hand for this variation.)
• Cover the leaf with a piece of cheesecloth or burlap that is larger than the leaf. With a sponge dipped in paint, dab the sponge over the fabric. Avoid using too much paint or rubbing the sponge over the fabric. With this technique, the textured pattern from the fabric will get added to the silhouette surrounding the leaf shape.
• Do several leaf silhouettes over a sheet of paper. Allow some of the paint surrounding the shapes to overlap, creating different colors.
• After the paint dries, go back and paint the white space with a brush in a complementary color.

After painting around the edge of the leaf, carefully remove the leaf. The shape of the leaf will be white, with paint surrounding where the leaf was held. Decorate around the silhouette as desired, including adding more silhouette images to the page.

Photography for Kids – Composition

I’m focusing on photography for a few days because it’s summer and kids go to camp or on vacation or do things they don’t normally do. This all adds up to opportunities for taking pictures. Whether kids have a disposable film camera, a digital camera, or a camera in their phone, they can practice some of the skills that will improve their pictures.

The activity below is a to-do list of sorts from my eBook Art in Nature, Nature in Art. If kids work their way through the list, not just once but several times, using different subjects, they will teach themselves how to take interesting photographs. In this case, interesting relies upon composition or where things are placed in an image. In some cases, kids can move something around before they take its picture, but in most cases the object is where it is. When kids can’t move the objects around, they can change their position, which will allow also them to modify their picture.

For example, stand back from a tree and take a picture of it from the ground to the leafy crown – this is a 3/3 crop. Move in closer and eliminate the bottom 1/3 of the scene and you have a 2/3 crop (because you can see 2/3 of the entire subject). If you go closer (or use a telephoto lens) to focus your picture on the leafy top of the tree you’ll have 1/3 crop. Don’t worry about dividing a subject exactly in thirds.

Another thing to think about is the Rule of Thirds. Imagine a grid that divides the image into thirds horizontally and vertically. A photographer should line up the subject of their photo along one of the imaginary horizontal or vertical lines. This allows the viewer’s eye to flow across the image without jerking here and there without settling.

__Take an overall picture of a scene
__Move in for six detail pictures
__Hold the camera vertically
__Hold the camera horizontally
__Take a picture at a tilt
__Crop an image 1/3
__Crop an image 2/3
__Crop an image 3/3
__Fill the frame with the subject
__Place the subject on the left 1/3line
__Place the subject on the right 1/3 line
__Place the subject on the bottom 1/3 line
__Place the subject on the top 1/3 line
__Place the subject on a “hot spot” – where vertical and horizontal lines meet

Photography for Kids – Lighting

The bright summer may be the most challenging light to take photographs in – particularly at midday. The lighting is harsh and the shadows create sharp contrasts. Maybe the best way for kids (and adults) to learn how to handle the challenges of natural lighting is to go out and take photographs in different conditions.

Unlike indoors, lighting isn’t something that you can control when you’re outdoors – or can you? You and your child can go to a location at different times of day to experience a variety of lighting situations. Let’s say you are vacationing beside a lake. You could take pictures of the lake from the same vantage point at sunrise, early morning, noon, late afternoon, early evening, sunset, and even at night. Kids could take pictures on a cloudless day, a partly cloudy day, and a cloudy day (even a cloudy day can have different lighting throughout the day).

Even if you are at home, kids can go into their yard and take a picture every day (or a few times throughout the day). Take some notes on paper or rename the pictures on the computer to note the lighting. It may seem like a bother at the time, but remind kids that they probably won’t remember the details a few days or a few months from now. Again, all of these experiments allow you to know what will work in the future. Learn to Take Beter Photographs.

__Take a picture in direct sunlight
__Take a picture in shade
__Take a backlit picture (the sun is behind the subject)
__Take a picture with the flash in direct sun
__Take a picture with the flash in shade
__Take a picture with the flash with backlighting

Super Simple Sun Prints

You don’t need to hunt down that special blue sun print paper to entertain your kids with this art project. This technique even allows you to skip developing the print under water. Chances are you have the supplies at home – ordinary construction paper and something to hold lightweight objects in place.

Materials for Crafts
You need construction paper that hasn’t already been exposed to the sun (by sitting on a tabletop, etc.).

You’ll also need different objects with interesting shapes. This project is a great way to get kids to focus on the shape or silhouette of an object. For preteens, they may recognize this concept as positive and negative space. (Learn what that means and get a couple of art project ideas at Positive and Negative Space Art Projects and Positive and Negative Space Cut Paper Designs.) This is an inexpensive project, so kids can experiment and discover the silhouettes that various objects will leave behind.

For lightweight objects that might blow away, you’ll need pebbles or pins
that will allow you to hold those items in place.

A sunny day

How to Make a Sun Print
You’ll need to work in an area that will get sunlight for two or three hours. Work on a flat surface – short grass is okay.
Set down the paper.

Place the item or items on the paper. If the items will blow away (as leaves will), weigh them down with small pebbles or use map pins or push pins to tack the item to the paper. Make certain that the pebble or pin is on the object and that it’s not sitting full on the paper or it will create its own shape.

Leave the items in the sun. Check after two hours by lifting the items just a bit. The dye in the paper is protected by the object. The paper that wasn’t covered will fade in the sun.

Ta dah! You’ve created a sun print of an object. Experiment with items that have a variety of shapes.

The Colors of Nature

Color activities work with children of all ages. With younger children, looking at the colors in nature helps to teach them their colors as they learn that “red” isn’t always the red in a box of Crayola crayons. With older children and preteens, color activities become more art-based and noticing nature can help this more independent bunch learn how to combine colors in their clothing or their rooms.

Rainbow Hunt – For a color activity that doesn’t require any props, simply challenge children on a walk to find one example of every color of the rainbow or the basic box of eight crayons. Play this as a memory game as well, by naming the different colors and having the children respond with what they found with that color.

Colors of the Season – Cut four-inch squares of construction paper in colors that the child would see on a nature walk – for spring, yellow, light green, dark green, white, pink. Punch a hole in each square and string onto a piece of yarn. As the child walks, they must find examples of those specific colors. If you are with more than one child, rotate the necklace to different children who then get to show the others with them at least one example of each color on the necklace.

Seasonal Color Wheel – Older children may prefer the challenge of mixing paint or color pencils to create the colors they see during a particular walk through nature.

Rainbow Stories – For this activity you’ll need a bag of multi-colored pony beads and enough yarn to make a necklace for each child. As the children find object in different colors, they earn one bead for each color. You can require that two children can’t suggest the same item to earn a bead (so if one child earns a yellow bead for a buttercup, another child must look for a bumblebee or a dandelion to earn their bead).

At the end of the walk, the children must recall the items that earned them each bead and then incorporate those items into a story that they will tell the others with them.

For the child interested in animals, try these Adventures in Color and Camouflage to show the child how animals rely upon the colors of nature to offer them protection. Whether kids are learning their colors or already know their colors, you can incorporate the hues in nature into art, storytelling, and science activities.

Nature Art for Kids – Word Art

Use rocks, twigs, and seashells to write messages to others who'll visit your location after you've left. You can do this art in nature project almost anywhere. This is a fun activity for children just learning their letters; but, it is even more enjoyable for children who can spell. For this kids’ craft, children use natural materials to write messages to others who will later discover their simple endeavors.

Children will need to gather a supply of twigs, pine cones, seashells, pebbles, acorns, etc. with which to write a letter or word. The location will determine the materials the children use. Kids might decide to write out each letter with a different object or use a mix of natural materials to create each letter. Encourage children to experiment and then judge the results.

When you select a location, you want it to be somewhere others will see the message without destroying it should a walker who isn’t paying attention accidentally scattering the letters with her feet. You should also be careful to avoid doing this on lawns – when a lawnmower comes on the scene, it could be dangerous for the operator and anyone in the area if pebbles or twigs start flying as the cutting blade runs over your project.

Children will also find it easier to work if they select a location where others don’t have to sidestep around a child to get to where they are going – so, no doorways, pathways, etc. It can be a challenge to find a spot where kids can work but where others will see their artistic messages.

With a work area and a supply of natural materials, children can write out words or messages to those who’ll come along at a later time and discover these expressions. This can be as simple as “Hello,” or can encourage an action, “Shhh,” or “Look up.” Letters six-to-twelve inches high work up quickly. You may want children to start with words containing approximately five letters.

Young children who are just learning their letters can use their gathered materials to form letters. Have a bit of fun by making a “T” next to a tree or an “S” from seashells. This is a casual way to reinforce what a child is learning in school. If your child is enjoying the process, you could help him write out simple words. When possible, scratch the letters in the sand or dirt and allow the children to form the letters with found objects.

This is a fun and easy kids’ activity to do while you are resting alongside a natural trail or while you are picnicking or having a snack. Children may become inspired to write a series of words, which develop into a short phrase when read together as someone moves along a quarter-mile or even a mile section of trail.

Find more nature-inspired art and craft projects in Art in Nature/Nature in Art: Art Experiences for Kids Ages 8 – to – 14 and their Creative Adults.

Sun and Shadows

After a few rainy days, the sun is out, the sky is cloudless (for now), and the buds on shrubs and trees are opening into flowers and leaves. Two rabbits were hopping through the backyard this morning and my husband was lucky enough to catch sight of a coyote in the forest behind where he works. It turns out the coyote was snuffling around for the rabbit that revealed itself – and then got away (at top speed) from the predator.

I’m listening to birds singing, but it is harder to see them in the interplay of light and shadow up in the trees. Now it will be safe for them to start building nests that will be shielded by leafy shadows.

On a sunny day, take your kids outside and with chalk, trace their shadows on the driveway. Repeat thirty minutes later, and thirty minutes after that. For fun comparisons, the first time, trace around their feet and then trace the shadow. Every time after that, kids stand in their footprints before you trace their shadow. Even if kids are old enough to understand that the position of the sun in the sky alters the shape of shadows over the day, this is a fun activity.

After tracing three or four silhouettes, kids can color in the images, changing the color chalk they are using each time they have to cross a line – the end result is colorful and crazy, sort of like the child has become tie-dyed.

For more fun ideas, check out Shadow Art and Shadow Activities for Kids.