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You are here: Home / Create / Art Projects / Unique Art Project for Kids: Use Sticks as Your Canvas

February 25, 2014 By Chelsey

Unique Art Project for Kids: Use Sticks as Your Canvas

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In this art project for kids we use sticks we found outdoors as our canvas for sketching. The kids had an absolute blast trying out this unique art activity using natural materials!

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Art Project for Kids: Use Sticks as Your Canvas for Sketching~ BuggyandBuddy.com

 

With the weather warming up, the kids and I have been spending much more time outside. All that outdoor time has given me the itch to get busy creating more art using natural materials! (We’ve previously used items from nature to make symmetrical art and woven with nature on homemade looms.)

 

Do you remember our salt art based on works by Motoi Yamamoto? (If you haven’t seen our salt art for kids post, be sure to check it out!) Another technique Motoi Yamamoto uses is besides creating with salt is to sketch on wood painted with gesso.  (It’s really quite amazing. Not only does he create beautiful spiral sketches, but he actually photographs them and develops the negatives of the images on paper. You can see an example of this work here.)

 

Art Project for Kids: Use Sticks as Your Canvas for Sketching~ BuggyandBuddy.com

 

I thought it’d be fun to try something similar here at home. Instead of using wooden panels, Lucy and I gathered sticks to use as our canvases! (This post contains affiliate links.)

Art for Kids Using Sticks

Supplies for stick art

Materials for Stick Art

  • Sticks
  • White gesso (White tempera paint also works.)
  • Paintbrush
  • Colored pencils

Before creating  your art you need to prepare the canvas. Rinse any dirt off your sticks and let them dry. Once they’re dry, paint a couple layers of gesso over one side of each stick. (We also tried this using white tempera paint, and it also worked. The surface just wasn’t quite as smooth as it was with the gesso.)

Once the gesso is dry, you’re ready to start sketching. Grab some colored pencils and have fun drawing on your stick canvas! Lucy drew all kinds of little pictures on her stick.

 

stick art

 

There are so many fun ways to display your stick art. We had it on our nature table for awhile…

 

painted stick on nature table

 

…and it also looks pretty stuck into the dirt of potted flowers or plants!

 

Art for Kids Using Sticks~ Buggy and Buddy


Find all kinds of fun activities in our ebook!

Learn more about it here, or buy it now here!

Fizz, Pop, Bang! 40 Playful Science and Math Activities for Kids

 

Filed Under: Art Projects, Elementary, Kindergarten, Outside Play Tagged With: art for kids, gesso, sticks

« Rainbow Crafts: Unique Rainbow Art Project for Kids
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Welcome to Buggy and Buddy! I'm Chelsey, a former teacher and parent living on the central coast of California. I love sharing crafts, science, STEM and STEAM activities, free printables and more! Read More…

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