Spray Bottle Silhouettes

Creating spray bottle silhouettes is a simple nature art activity that is super engaging for children across a range of ages and abilities.

Spray Bottle Silhouettes

This nature art activity is great for engaging children across a range of ages, from preschoolers who just love to squirt with a spray bottle through to primary age students who can create quite intricate patterns or pictures through careful placement of the found, natural materials.

Just be prepared with lots of large sheets of paper for this activity as we know children across all ages find this such a fun experience that they will be asking to make more than one artwork!

How to Create a Spray Bottle Silhouette

You will need:

• Nature objects
• Spray bottles
• Food colouring or acrylic paint
• Large sheets of paper

Head outdoors and invite children to search for leaves, flowers, sticks, stones and other natural items with varied shapes, sizes and textures. Remind them to collect natural objects from the ground rather than taking them off plants.

Children can then arrange the foraged nature items onto the paper. Depending upon the age and ability of the children involved, items can be placed randomly or more purposefully to create patterns or pictures.

Fill the spray bottles with water and food colouring or acrylic paint (one colour per bottle).

Invite children to spray the arrangement with the dye/paint and leave to dry.

Once the paint has dried, children can peel off the nature items to reveal the shapes, patterns or pictures below.

Hints and tips:

• Consider the colours you choose for the activity. Different effects can be achieved using a selection of solely warm or cool colours, using complementary colours or by using a combination of primary colours to make secondary colours.
• Want to save paper? Use food colouring and spray the designs directly onto an old white bedsheet that can be washed and used again, or directly onto a concrete footpath.