Sustainable Art Ideas
One of the greatest values to instill in children today is an awareness of sustainability and recycling. Instead of constantly buying new and expensive art supplies, transforming household “waste” greatly enhances children’s problem-solving skills and creativity.
Creating Wonders from Cardboard Boxes
Never throw away shipping boxes immediately! You can flatten them to create giant canvases. Or, without breaking the box apart, you can build a “playhouse” with your child by drawing and painting windows and doors on the outside.
Printmaking: Vegetables and Objects
You don’t have to use only brushes.
- Potato Printing: It’s an old method, but kids love it. You can carve a star or a heart into the surface of half a potato, dip it in watercolor, and press it onto paper.
- Leaf and Twig Printing: You can create incredible forest pictures by painting the veined surfaces of dried leaves you’ve collected from outside and pressing them onto paper.
- Bubble Wrap: When you paint the surface of bubble wrap from shipping packages and press it onto paper, you get a wonderful beehive pattern.
Puppets from Rolls
Finished toilet paper or paper towel rolls are perfect figures. By coloring them and adding string and buttons, you can make them into pirates, princesses, or flying rockets.
Sustainable art teaches children this: You don’t need expensive materials to create something valuable; what’s truly valuable is your imagination!
