Exploring Textures in Nature

It is always so wonderful to watch what little creatives make with a blank piece of paper and some colourful liquid acrylic paints. We always knew it was going to be a messy one, but also a lot of creative fun!!

In this last session we were looking at ‘Textures In Nature’, identifying how something feels, whether it is rough, smooth, slimey or bumpy etc. One of our favourite textures for this project was lichen, as the resist process we were working with easily mimicked the look of this interesting texture.

The first step of the process was to paint our paper with a nice thick layer of water. Then using pipettes, we dropped colour by colour onto our page. Trying to select colours which would complement each other as they dispersed and morphed into each other. It is a fun process to explore as there is always that element of surprise on how the paints will blend together onto the paper.

The last step of the process was to sprinkle salt, rice and fern leaves onto the colourful pages. The salt and rice draw the paint inwards creating a spontaneous pattern and creating a resist where they rest on the paper. The fern leaves work in a similar way with the paint travelling to the edges of the leaf, leaving subtle outlines of the ferns shape.

This was another paired workshop, this being part A creating colourful pieces of paper which we will use for next week’s screen-printing session B where we will be looking at ‘Shapes In Nature’.

We look forward to seeing the results.