Using items from nature is a great way to create art! This is a type of ephemeral art, or art made from nature that cannot be saved, and does not last. We, however, usually take pictures of our nature art before letting the wind and weather take/wash it away.

What you will need:

Natural items (flowers, leaves, rocks, etc…)
Paper (optional)
Camera (optional)
Printer/Photoshop (optional)

Natural color wheel

Collect flowers and leaves in all different colors, making sure to have at least one of each primary (red, yellow, blue) and secondary (orange, green, violet) color.
Arrange on a sheet of paper or on the ground in order to create a color wheel.

Nature pictures

The boys also made pictures using items from nature such as leaves, flowers, sticks, and rocks. They loved just playing around with everything on big sheets of white paper (you can also do this on the ground). As another option, I took their pictures in front of a white background, cleaned the photos up in Photoshop, and then copied and pasted them into PowerPoint and then printed them on white card stock (for step by step directions on how to do this, see the “Mixed Media ‘Rain”Bows” project)…they then arranged their natural materials around the pictures of themselves to create a background.