Quick art - Autumn leaves

(Goblin is 24 months)

We are in the Gower, a lovely part of Wales. It is really leafy and green. As a result there are loads of different leaves around. On our walk yesterday I picked some of the more interesting ones. Below is a fern and what I think is a leaf from a elderberry tree (but I could be wrong, it was a young plant so had no berries which is the usual sign). 

Goblin has become mildly obsessed with painting recently but its such a palaver. You have to get out the plastic mat and aprons, and paint and make sure you have wipes and an exit plan etc. And of course he usually wants to get started before you have everything ready. But today I did some 3 minute painting with him and it worked quite well. 

As soon as Goblin said "Painting?" I grabbed some baby wipes, yesterday's leaves, a tray and the nearest washing up sponge. Then we got out some paper and paint. I let Goblin squeeze the paint onto the tray and then dip the sponge into it. He really liked this. The picture above is my later attempt - the tray was a bit more covered when Goblin had his turn. 

We used the leaves as stencils and sponged paint over the top of them to make voids. I held the leaf still. The good thing about ferns is they are quite stiff so they won't move around even under toddler strength sponging. The one on green paper is one I did later to see what two colours looked like and the one on blue paper is Goblin's attempt. As you can see there isn't much difference in presentation, so this really is a great option for toddlers. And the effect is really interesting. 

Once we had the paint on the leaves from making the voids, we also used the leaves as printing blocks and flattened them onto a second bit of paper. 

 The fern is quite tricky because you need to press every little leaf down. Goblin had greater success with a big dock leaf. 

We used the red and yellow to get an autumn effect. Goblin likes saying the word Yellow even if he can't yet match the word to the colour. 

The great thing about this activity (from a parent's point of view) was how quick it was to clean up. I used the sponge from the painting to wipe down the tray that held the paint, and washed Goblin's hands and used a wipe on the floor and we were all done and ready for our next activity. 


I'm linking this to the ABC and 123 learning cooperative link up. There are some great ideas on their blog and on each link up for all ages.