Leaf Pasting Activity

If you are looking for a creative artwork out from nature and the surroundings, then here you have a brilliant way to demonstrate your creativity in a natural way. Do you have the love for plants? If yes then this activity will surely be of great interest to you. Have you noticed how much care you put upon the little plant to grow up beautifully with brightly coloured leaves and colorful fruits on it? But how do you feel when you find those tiny leaves falling from the branches of the little plant? Sometimes you unwillingly need to throw those leaves because they aren’t of any use to you or to the plant.

But how about using those tiny fallen leaves into some creative use? Yes, we can create a beautiful artwork out of those dried leaves and reserve them in our art book or frame them on the wall forever.

Artwork with leaves require not much hard work or skill, but just a little imagination and creativity. You can place the leaves, decorate and paste them on your art book to give it a lively natural look.

How to dry the leaves?

The leaves which are fallen from the plant will not remain stiff, it becomes weak and very soft. So it is important to make the leaves flat and stern so that you can preserve them for future use. Use only those leaves which have been fallen at the immediate note, because the older fallen leaves get very hard and crisp.

Follow these steps to dry the fresh or the immediately fallen leaves:

1. Take a thick old notebook or diary.
2. Place the fresh or fallen leaves one after the other in one of the pages in the middle of the diary.
3. Keep the diary closed for at least 4-5 days.
4. You can even load some more heavy books upon the diary.
5. Now, look at this picture where the transformation of the leaves is shown from Day 1 to Day 4.
   
6. On Day 5 you are ready to use the stiffened leaves for your artwork.

Tips: Do not make the leaves too much crispy and never use much-dried leaves as they will start breaking into pieces.

A Bird in a Nest

Collect different shapes and sizes of leaves from the garden or from the surroundings. Place those leaves in a thick diary or book to make them flat and stiff. Then use those dried leaves to make a beautiful and innovative artwork.

Materials Required:

1. White chart paper
2. Leaves (various sizes and shapes dried leaves of the plant)
3. Glue
4. Poster Colors
5. Paintbrush
6. Sketch Pens
7. Pencil
8. Cellophane/ Cello-tape

Procedure:

1. Take a white chart paper in rectangular shape.
2. Draw a nest and a bird with a pencil as shown in the figure.
   
3. Now use different paints to color the nest and the bird.
   
4. Use a black and a brown color sketch pen to draw the outlines of the figure.
   
5. Arrange the leaves accordingly.
6. Apply glue and stick the leaves on the figure one by one.
   
7. Finally, you can put a cellophane or stick cello-tape over the artwork to preserve the leaves for years.
   

Use these beautiful leaves to make a fun activity with your children. Leaves are usually dried in this manner to make amazing decorations and artwork. Let your child bring up some creative stuff by engaging them with nature.

Paromita Pramanick ©2017. All Rights Reserved.