Some Time with Nature

We may be distanced socially, but that’s an important time not to distance from nature!

Today we’re bringing you five ideas for engaging artistically with the natural world around you:

Making Your Own Ink + Pressed Leaf & Flower Drawings + Making Your Own Perfume from Garden Ingredients + Creating a Fairy Garden + DIY Birdfeeder

Let’s start with the most straightforward and maybe familiar garden craft project, making your own birdfeeder!

[Source: Dragonfly Blue Craft]

There are many different ways to do this, but this post shares 5 different methods, so you can choose one you have the materials for, or order what you don’t have if one of them catches your eye.

Here's the link to DIY Birdfeeders.

Now maybe you have a garden or maybe you’re thinking about what to plant this year. Well, you might consider that you can make perfumes from the flowers you choose!

Check out this excellent tutorial for how to do this yourself:
Make Perfume from Garden Ingredients

Okay, so this one will get you and kids outside. This fairy garden is all about exploring, searching for materials you can use to make a little bit of magic back at home, so a great way to spend some outdoor time with family.

Here’s the Fairy Garden Tutorial.

Maybe while you were out collecting materials for the above you happen upon some leaves or flowers with particularly interesting shapes. With those, you could do some pressed leaf and flower drawings!

First, check these out for a bit of inspiration:

   

There are  many more at The Sketching Backpacker, where the above are pulled from.

Pressed leaf tutorial:

1. collect interesting leaves!
2. place each between paper towels (this will soak up the water you’re pressing out of them)
3. pile heavy books on top of them
4. leave for 10-14 days
5. remove your dried, pressed leaves!

And for the above, you could use Mod Podge to get those leaves adhering to the page, and you might want to pick up a sketchbook like THIS to make this a continuous project, or some slightly heavier sheets of paper like THIS.

And now finally, here is a tutorial for Making Natural Inks on your own!

[source: marthastewart.com]

One additional material you’ll need to have for this is gum arabic, which you can pick up HERE. And if you’re feeling like making a few of these maybe some Glass Bottles to store them.

Here is a simple straightforward tutorial: Natural Ink Colors

Here are a few particular ink recipes (they use Thyme Essential Oil): Ink Recipes

We hope you enjoy these, and of course, if you make some, please send along images! We’d love to see! You can send them to Workshops@ViewArts.org

Stay well,

The Team at View