Glorious Autumn Leaves

The idea for this art activity was found at Deep Space Sparkle, a wonderful blog by an extremely talented art teacher.  In our classroom, we had the children work on this in several stages and the results were stunning.

Step one:  paint the veined (bumpy) side of the leaf with white paint.

Step two:  Press the leaf onto black paper  - we used a plastic work mat to cover the leaf which made it easier (and cleaner) to rub and transfer onto the paper.

Step three:  Repeat until desired effect is created.  Let dry.

Step four:  Add colors around the prints - we used sponges….

The paint here is still wet, and the colors quite vibrant.  Once the paint dried, the colors became muted….

…and even more beautiful!