Nature Paintbrushes

Have you noticed all the beautiful seed heads around at the moment? My garden is full of teasels, fennel heads, poppy pods and all manner of skeletal sculptures and the hedgerows are similar.

For a creative idea using a selection of seeds heads, why not make nature paintbrushes and paint with them?

We tied bunches of autumnal branches onto sticks with some old garden string and dipped them into our natural dye paints. An oversized roll of paper provided the perfect surface for our pattern-making - the sheer size encourages children to think big and the shared space means they can think as a team.

I imagined we would create lots of beautiful prints of seed heads but ended up swirling, dragging and splodging - a far more abstract result but no less colourful and super satisfying!

This is a great, creative activity for any season - proving an expressive outlet for children as well as a lovely opportunity to explore nature. Chatter over the table could include the comparative effects of each paintbrush, what plant the seeds come from, which colour is their favourite, how the paintbrush feels on the paper - what might work better next time.

We didn’t end up with a masterpiece to put on the wall - but we did make very good, eco-friendly wrapping paper.