Around Halloween time, I saw the coolest project on Carissa Darling for Spooky Black Glue Drawings. They used black glue to create some spooky Halloween pictures. We never had time to make those pictures, but with Fall upon us, we made some Fall leaves using black glue. We have since used black glue for other projects such as Black Glue and Watercolor Pumpkins and Hearts with Black Glue.
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Why watercolor fall leaves are awesome
- A fun fall art project for kids of all ages
Supplies
- Black paint
- regular white school glue in a glue bottle
- Paper (I used copy paper)
- Water color paints and brush
- Construction paper
How to make fall leaves with black glue
To make your black glue, just squirt some black paint into your Elmer's glue bottle. I wanted to be sure to have a dark black color so I emptied out most of the white glue from the bottle until there was only ¼ left. Then I added some squirts of black paint and shook it up.
I was left with some cool-looking black glue.
Older kids would probably have a great time making their own leaf picture. Since my kids are all ages 3 and under, I made the leaf picture outline. Note that this is not much of an improvement.
I added some veins.
These took forever to dry. I made them while the kids were napping, thinking we could use them when they woke up. Nope. It took a day for the black glue to dry. So plan accordingly.
When the glue had dried, I talked to the girls about Fall leaves and the different colors they can be. Of course, this went in one ear and out the other. The kids used watercolors to paint the leaves whatever colors they wanted.
Little C was so into painting her leaf. Her colors actually did look like all the shades of Fall with the combination of yellow and orange!
When "A" finished painting her leaf with watercolour paint, she decided to paint the paper surrounding it too.
After the paintings were dry, I cut them out and glued them to some Fall colored construction paper. They would also really pop on black construction paper or white cardstock. I left one on the water-colored background to show you how it looks. I really like both options. I was so pleased with the vibrant leaves the kids created. Even B who painted a large portion of her Fall leaf black still managed to have a colorful leaf.
For more fun activities for kids, check out Green Kid Crafts for environmentally friendly crafts.
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Wise Owl Factory says
this is great for children to see how to use glue the opposite of how we usually use it (white and hidden) so this will be a creative experience---thanks for all the supportive information
I pinned and am linking to this from a recent blog post of mine (KBN network)
Vicky @ Mess For Less says
Thanks so much for sharing and for the kind words!
divina besenio says
these are sooo cool! We'll try to do these tomorrow (after the paint has dried. thanks for the tip!)