By HollyMann Follow
Paint Made From Berries & Nature
By HollyMann Follow
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About: Army Vet. I love learning & being creative. I am back! More About HollyMann »
In this Instructable you’ll learn how to make paint from berries. This is a great project to do with kids. It’s a lot of fun foraging for wild edible fruit and then using some of it to make paint!
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Step 1: Items Needed to Make Paint From Nature
The first item needed in order to make the paint is some berries! My son and I have been picking berries in our back yard along a wooded area, but not everyone will have access to wild berries. If you don’t have access to wild berries, you can use store-bought cherries, raspberries or blackberries. As you can see in the photo I also had blueberries but they did not work in producing any juice.
The berries that I used were black elderberries, wild mulberries (these produced the thickest paint), wild black raspberries, cherries, some wild red berries (I don’t know the type of plant these were from) & I also tried using some cherry tomatoes (those didn’t work well).
In order to make a green-colored paint, you will need some spinach. I also used ground ginger and turmeric to make a range of colors from yellow to dark brown (when mixed with berry juice). You’ll also need to have a little bit of flour to mix with the juice & and a colander to strain.
In order to complete a painting, you will also need paint brushes and any type of watercolor paper.
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Step 2: Mashing & Collecting Juice
Be sure to have an apron and lots of paper towels and bowls on hand. Collect the fruit you plan to use in bowls. Then mash the fruit with a fork and then put it through a colander (mash some more) to finish up collecting all the juice. Some items are best boiled to collect pigments, but for this Instructable we’re using the quickest methods possible – and are mostly just smashing them to extract the juice.
The only exception is in making a green color paint – as this will require you to boil some water (on the stove or in the microwave) and let spinach leaves steep to extract the color. I did this as I really wanted a green to use in my painting.
To create a nice thick yellow color, I used tumeric. Ginger works also but not as well as tumeric. With the tumeric, you can also mix other berry juice to make a range of colors.
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How to Dye Flowers with Two Colors
- White daisies or chrysanthemums
- Red and blue food coloring or liquid watercolor paint
- 2 or more Mason jars or cups
- Chopping board and knife
INSTRUCTIONS
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Prepare the cups Pour an inch or two of water into each cup. Add food coloring or liquid watercolors to the water (we use liquid watercolors interchangeably with food coloring for most of our science experiments and homemade art materials). Be generous with the color.
And here are our red, white, and blue patriotic flower ready to grace the table at a 4th of July BBQ. A whole bouquet of them! How often do you get to use your science experiments as party decorations?
More Summer Activities for Kids
- 11 Ways to Have a Creative Summer with Kids
- 100+ Summer Crafts & Activities for Kids
- 12 Best Summer Art Activities for Kids
- Nature Art for Kids
- Garden Crafts for Kids
- How to do Flower Printing with Kids
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