Our family goes camping a lot during the summer and we always take along supplies to do art projects. I really love mixed media and using paints and texture so I decided to try using things I could find at the campsite to create a mixed media background.
I didn't have a lot of room so I had to choose just some of my art supplies to take. I chose some acrylic paints and some of the Ranger Paint Dabbers and a children's box of watercolors and a pad of watercolor paper.
I walked around the camp area and gathered some leaves and flowers and pinecones to play with. I painted a light pink background on the watercolor paper with watered-down acrylic paint.
First I tried to use the leaves as a mask and used the paint dabbers to dot paint over the top of the plant, but the leaves kept moving around and didn't leave a clear image. I think I would love to use the plants as masks if I had some color sprays - then they wouldn't move around and would leave a great image!
Since masking didn't work so well, I tried using the painted plant like a stamp and it turned out great. The paint dabbers put on just enough color to make the details of the leaves and stems transfer to the paper beautifully.
I tried a different leaf stem as a mask - just to see if the plant made a difference and dabbed paint over it, but again it kept moving and wasn't as clear as I liked. Plus the dabbed paint dried really fast on the watercolor paper and I didn't love how it looked so abrupt and unblended. To soften this part, I just used a little of the watered-down pink acrylic paint and went over it all to soften and blend some of those hard edges.
Leaves made wonderful stamps! I loved how this came out! I just dabbed paint on the veined side of the leaf (the side that feels bumpiest) and pressed the image onto the paper just like a stamp.
This grass wasn't stiff enough to use like a paintbrush - but again it made a wonderful stamped image.
The pinecone was a surprise! I don't know for sure what I expected the image to look like - I guess I thought the print would look like a pinecone - but it didn't! Only the very tips put paint on the paper and made speckles. I rolled the pinecone around in a circle several times to get the look in the photo. I think this might have been my favorite image out of all them because it was so different than I expected it to be.
I used the yellow flowers like a stams, too - just gently dab paint over the flower petals and center with your fingers and then press the flower onto the paper. If I just held this flower and dotted it onto the paper, only the center would make a print on the paper so I had to put the flower down and press all the petals down flat with my fingers to get the entire flower image. If I was very careful, I could use the flower several times before the petals started to come off. The stamped flower image was so pretty! I'm going to remember this to use again.
Dandelion flowers make awesome stamps, too. This time I put a puddle of acrylic paint onto a paper plate and dipped the flower into the paint and pounced the flower onto the paper - kind of like you would do if you were using a stippling brush. The first few pounces had too much paint so after I dipped the flower, I pounced it onto a piece of scratch paper a couple times to get some of the paint off before I stamped onto my project. I loved this technique, too. I went a little crazy with the dandelion pouncing ;)
And this is what I had when I was finished - an amazing and bright background full of natural texture that I can't wait to finish! And one of the fun things about this background is that it will bring back fun memories of camping and playing with nature!
After doing this background I'm anxious to look around my yard or the park or even a city street and see what objects could be used to make patterns and texture for artwork that would make the art more authentic and meaningful. What ideas do you have for using objects from nature or from you surroundings to create artwork?
