Color mixing and leaf printing

Exploring colors, textures and creating depth within a picture - an easy-to-set-up activity that allows a lot of freedom of expression for little ones!

This was a really fun activity. I set it up by placing a load of leaves, dried flower branches, a twig, some pom moms (for flowers) and some string on a tray. Each item was supposed to make a different texture on the paper. We used only green, blue and yellow paint (until the end when we added red/white/pink). I started the activity by putting lots of blue, yellow and green paint all over a large tray and asking my three year old to mix them up however she wanted. I was hoping to end up with darker green, blue-green, yellow-green and whatever in the middle!

We then got to work pressing leaves and twigs into the paint - making sure to use different areas of the tray of paint to get different colors of paint - and stamping them onto a large sheet of paper. Once we were done with stamping the green paint we mixed red and white to make pink and did some flowers on the paintings too.

Color mixing

In this activity, kids learn to mix yellow and blue to make green and red and white to make pink. We talked about how adding certain colors would change a color and practiced by adding more blue, yellow and red to the mixed paint. Color mixing is a common theme for preschools and kindergartens and kids are usually fascinated to see how colors can be made.

The finished pieces

Here they are!

#colormixing #colourmixing #leafprinting #outdoorcrafts