Playful and creative with nature art
Do a fun activity with children outdoors! Try making nature art, that is, art with things found in nature. This could be rocks, leaves, sticks, pine cones, flowers and so on. As long as you are outdoors and you use things you find in nature, you can make nature art. Nature art can be done in your own garden, in the playground, the forest, the beach, the park or anywhere else where you are close to nature. This is a great activity for children, as it combines creativity and imagination with physical activity, as you have to run around to find and collect materials.
How to make nature art
Nature art is perfect to do on a sunny afternoon with your babysitting. Together, you can decide on a place for the art, for example a piece of lawn, sandpit or tarmac, and then help each other to gather materials. The materials should then be used to make the nature art itself, placing the stones, pine cones, sticks or other materials to create patterns or figures. These can be small figures or large figures. You can choose whether to use only one type of material or to combine them. You can stick to a colour scheme, mix colours or work in black and white. There are no limits to your imagination! To illustrate what nature art can look like, here are five tips on simple patterns and figures you can make.
5 tips on simple nature art
1. spiral
The spiral is a simple figure that can be made with many different types of materials. You can also choose how elaborate you want to make it, either by making a simplified version using only stones or similar to make the figure, or by using leaves to decorate the spiral as well.
2. mandala
The mandala is actually a pictorial form from India, with varying degrees of complexity. The appearance of the mandala varies greatly but often it is a roundish shape with either symmetrical or asymmetrical patterns. You can take inspiration from an existing mandala image or you can invent your own mandala to make nature art. There are no rules for what a nature mandala should look like - you make it up as you go along.
3. flower
Make a flower out of flowers! Or why not out of leaves and stones? The flower is a nice and simple shape, which can be made in different ways.
4. animals
It can be a bit tricky to get the mould right, but try making an animal with the material you have found. Examples of simple animals you can try to mould are snail, butterfly, fish, bird or turtle.
5. Old man
Anyone can draw a stick figure, so make a stick figure using sticks instead. Then you can decorate it, giving it hair, eyes and clothes with other materials.
