Hello my magical, creative friends! Welcome to this weeks Make and Take creation- Watercolor with Nature!!
We’ll be collecting flowers, berries, and leaves to create natural pigments to paint with!!
Follow along with the video here:
Have you ever been on an adventure and NEED to paint something?? Or what happens when you don’t see the colors you want in your stash of paints?? Don’t worry- there’s paint all around you!!
Grab some lovely flowers, blackberries, spinach, and whatever else catches your eye- we’re going to make paint!
Start by chopping up your ingredients so they start to begin the pigmentation process- the juicier they are the quicker it will be to extract the colors!
Boil some water on the side and steep your chopped plant in the water! Use just enough water to cover the plant materials- that way it can be as concentrated as possible!
Add in some salt or white distilled vinegar to act as a pigment stabilizer!!
After it has steeped for quite a while, pour it over a coffee filter to get all of the material out of the paint! If you’re straining something like blackberries you might want to use two filters!!
Different materials like pink daises, calendula, blackberries, or even spinach can yield so many different pigments!!
Sometimes what you expect a flower to make turns out to be something completely different!
We expected this Pink Daisy to make a bright pink dye- since that was the color of the petals! We were pleasantly surprised though to find it created a light brown color once dried!! How amazing is that??
We theorize that just as flowers and berries change color as the season turns to fall- so too do the pigments!! All of this results in a very nice muted, autumnal color scheme!
Now that we have crafted so many inks to create with- let’s make some art!!
Elli prepared these mushroom and flower watercolor collections just for us to play with!!
Test out different watercolor techniques with these inks and see how they react! The color of the ink will change as it dries on the paper as well- how fun!!
Now we can take our painting and create a beautiful card for a loved one! We have a variety of ribbon and card bases to inspire you to capture all of the amazing colors and textures these inks produce!
What a fun creation we have made together!!
This goes to show you can make art ANYWHERE and out of Anything!!
If you have the Creative Urge- find anything and create something magical from it!! Whatever you create will be amazing because it was YOU who made it!!
Stop by and create with our natural inks, on this specially created Elli Art!!
Anyone of any age is welcome to make this craft, available ALL WEEK!!
See you soon!!
Art and Happiness
2004 James St
Bellingham WA 98225
Mon-Sat
10am-6pm
Sunday
Noon-5pm
Give us a Call!!
(360) 206-0389