Spring Flowers Art Project

Last summer, someone posted a link to my Facebook wall about doing fireworks paintings using empty toilet paper tubes.  This is my floral twist on that project.  This would be a great project to work on after a nature walk paying specific attention to the details on your local flowers.

You will need the following supplies (affiliate links are included for your convenience):
empty toilet paper tubes (at least one for each color flower you plan to make)
9x12" construction paper in blue
green construction paper, yarn, or pipe cleaners
scissors
glue (we used sticks, but you'll want liquid glue for yarn or chenille stems)
cotton swabs
liquid tempera paints

First, you need to cut "petals" in the TP tubes.  We've been learning about botany this semester, so we talked about how some flowers have 5 petals, some have 6, some have lots of petals.  This would be a good time to bring up the flowers you saw on your walk.

You can cut short, fat petals, or long skinny petals.  You can make the edges pointy or rounded.

This is the flower I made as an example for the kids.

I wanted some pink flowers, but the pink we have is more of a fuchsia, so I added some silver both to make it lighter, and to add a little shimmer to it.

With a sky blue background paper, you'll be able to use lots of different flower colors, even white!

I tried having the kids stamp in the paint on a paper plate, but unless you use a lot of paint, the paint starts drying out fairly rapidly.  I didn't want to be wasteful, so we ended up using a brush to quickly brush the paint onto the petals and then stamp it onto the paper.  Be sure to have the kids press each petal to the paper before lifting.

After you have your flowers painted on your paper, you end up with a fun little bouquet of cardboard flowers as "leftovers."  They're kind of cute all on their own.  You could paint the base green or wrap them in green construction paper and use them as a centerpiece or even place cards at dinner.

I had the children cut green construction paper to make stems and leaves for their flowers.  We reviewed how some plants have alternate, some have opposite, and some have whorl leaf placement.  You could also use green yarn to make stems and leaves, or even green pipe cleaners, if you prefer more texture or you run out of green construction paper.

At this point, the flower petal paint is dry, and it's time to paint the insides of the flowers.  The kids chose brown for their gold petaled flowers.  I had a heck of a time blending a good brown.  I made a lovely dark teal, though!   Eventually, we got brown, and after looking at sunflowers online, the kids dabbed brown paint into the center of the gold flowers with q-tips.  Dot dot dot dot dot!  The pink flowers got yellow centers, and a recycled milk jug cap is the perfect stamping size for this.

Happy May!  (Don't mind our photobomber.)


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