Nature is an inexhaustible source of creativity and inspiration. From time immemorial, people have drawn themes for works of art from it. For the people, their environment was not something frozen, motionless. Fields and trees, sun and clouds, grass and mountains were spiritualized images in fairy tales, epics, proverbs and sayings.
IN wildflowers people saw the charm of youth, birds were a symbol of freedom and independence, the wind was the personification of strength and power. Love in nature comes with a mother's lullaby and a grandmother's slow, calm tale.
Man is the owner of his land, namely the owner, and not a waster. Caring attitude nature must be cultivated from childhood, just like respect for elders and a culture of behavior in society.
Craftsmen used natural materials to make various crafts, many of which have outgrown their narrow utilitarian meaning and turned into genuine works of art.
The list of both groups is quite significant, therefore, based on specific local conditions, you can always find material for any homemade product. Each plant has its own uniqueness appearance: shapes of leaves, flowers, surfaces, etc. since when working with natural materials, all this must be taken into account.
Let's start with the most common material known since ancient times, clay.
Clay, found in nature, is so diverse in composition that you can actually find ready-made clay in the bowels of the earth. clay mixture, suitable for making any type of ceramics - from sparkling white earthenware to red kiln brick. Of course, large deposits valuable species clays are rare, so factories and plants for the production of ceramics appear near such natural treasures. For example, rich ferruginous clay is best suited for black-polished ceramics. It is characterized by high plasticity, perfectly molded on potter's wheel, and after drying it can be ironed until mirror shine. Dishes made from such clay do not allow moisture to pass through and are highly durable.
You can find suitable clay for modeling and pottery almost anywhere, if you wish. In addition, a small amount of clay can always be “corrected” by elutriation and other methods. Clay may lie immediately under the soil layer on great depth. In soda areas it can be detected at various earthworks. Layers of clay quite often come to the surface along the banks of rivers and lakes, in slopes and slopes of ravines.
Clay suitable for modeling can be successfully prepared even in big city. After all, somewhere nearby, builders are digging foundation pits for a new house, or water or gas pipelines are being repaired. In this case, clay layers located at great depths appear on the surface.
Each type of clay changes its color at a certain stage of modeling, drying and firing. Dried clay differs from raw clay only more in a light tone, but when fired, most clays change their color dramatically. The only exception is White clay, which, when moistened, acquires only a slight gray tint, and after firing remains the same white. By the color that the clay acquires after firing, white-burning clay is distinguished ( White color), light-burning (light gray, light yellow, light pink), dark-burning (red, brown, red-brown, brown-violet).
Ceramics-- products made from inorganic, non-metallic materials (for example, clay) and their mixtures with mineral additives, manufactured under the influence high temperature followed by cooling.
In the narrow sense, the word ceramics means clay that has been fired. However modern use this term expands its meaning to include all inorganic non-metallic materials. Ceramic materials can have a transparent or partially transparent structure and can be made from glass. The earliest ceramics were used as dishes made from clay or mixtures of it with other materials. Currently, ceramics are used as an industrial material (mechanical engineering, instrument making, aviation industry, etc.), as a building material, artistic material, as a material widely used in medicine and science. In the 20th century new ceramic materials were created for use in the semiconductor industry and other areas.
Depending on the structure, a distinction is made between fine ceramics (vitreous or fine-grained shards) and coarse ceramics (coarse-grained shards). The main types of fine ceramics are porcelain, semi-porcelain, faience, majolica. The main type of coarse ceramics is pottery ceramics.
Tree since ancient times it has been used in architecture, sculpture, decorative and applied arts, especially folk art (utensils, furniture, often tinted or decorated with carvings, intarsia, painting, gilding, etc.; carvings on the facades and interiors of buildings; wall cladding with laths, wood, etc.), as well as in the manufacture of printing forms for woodcuts, printed material and patterned gingerbread cookies. Man in Everyday life constantly comes into contact with wood - in the lap of nature, and in everyday life with certain products made from wood. Wood is the material that protects, warms, helps and pleases a person, giving him aesthetic pleasure. There is no alternative to wood as an ornamental material: its physical and plastic capabilities have long attracted humans.
The centuries-old practice of wood processing has allowed us to accumulate great experience, explore all its properties and expressive capabilities. Thus, certain traditions of working with wood gradually developed, depending on natural and climatic conditions, lifestyle and human activity.
Wealth color shades wood, a variety of textures (waviness, concentricity, picturesque entanglement of fibers, etc.) determine an infinite variety decorative effects products, and the relative ease of processing contributes to the direct embodiment of the artist’s creative energy.
From hardwood trees often use linden for carving. Linden wood is easy and clean to cut and is less susceptible to cracking and warping. Due to its low hardness, linden is not used for making furniture, so its use is limited to small household items.
Alder wood is also easy to cut, warps little, accepts finishing well and is imitated to resemble other species, such as mahogany. All this makes it suitable for all types of work.
An excellent material for carving is birch wood. It is harder than linden and alder and is more difficult to cut, but the quality of the carving is better. Birch wood can be painted and finished well. Its disadvantages are the ability to easily absorb and release moisture, as well as a tendency to warp and crack, which does not allow its use in large products. Birch can be used to make applied carved decorations and parts of furniture and other products.
For carving small items - dishes, souvenirs - poplar and aspen wood is used.
Oak has long been used for large decorative carvings and production of furniture with carvings. Oak carving is complex and labor-intensive due to the high hardness of the wood and its tendency to chip, but it is very expressive and decorative.
For small items decorated with carvings, rarer types of wood are also used: apple, cherry, etc.
From coniferous species For carving, pine, spruce, cedar, and yew wood is used. Decorations for platbands, icons, cornices, and gates have long been carved from pine. This carving is large, so the unevenness in the density of the layers of early and late wood of coniferous species does not complicate the work.
For many millennia, wood remained an accessible, beloved and understandable material to man. Wood is a construction material. In this capacity it is indispensable building material. Its mechanical and physical qualities are amazing: wood lends itself well to processing, it can be cut, chopped, sawed, planed, sharpened, and bent. Elasticity and toughness make it possible to hold screws and nails well. Coatings with varnish and drying oils make the wood waterproof.
Wood has exceptional practical qualities. All objects created from wood carry sculptural features. Wood is a decorative material. As a living natural organism, it has its own unique structural features, expressed in texture and color. In its entirety of mechanical, plastic and decorative qualities, wood is exceptionally suitable material for performing artistic work.
Everything created by man from wood has always had a practical purpose and at the same time expressed a spiritual meaning, since the characteristic feature applied art is that things created for practical application, become carriers of the master’s mood, his feelings and thoughts. A person improved a thing in form and perception, and in the process of labor his hand was improved, a sense of form, color, material, proportion, symmetry, and rhythm was cultivated.
Wood carving is a type of decorative and applied art (carving is also one of the types artistic treatment wood along with sawing, turning). Modern carvings do not have a strict classification, since they can be combined in the same product. different types threads.
Carving - view decorative arts; a method of artistic processing of wood, stone, bone, terracotta, varnish and other materials by carving.
Carving is used to decorate household items, decorate buildings, and create miniature sculptures. There are three-dimensional, high-relief, flat-relief, notched, contour, through and applied threads.
epics, proverbs and sayings. In wildflowers, people saw the charm of youth, birds were a symbol of freedom and independence, the wind was the personification of strength and power, Dnepr-Slavutich - wisdom and greatness, the people affectionately call the great mother Russian river Volga.Love for nature comes with a mother's lullaby and a grandmother's leisurely, educational tale. Nature teaches, educates. Remember "Three hundred pages of the Book of Nature" V. A. Sukhomlinsky, his famous “school under the blue sky”.
Man is the master of his land, it is the owner, not the spendthrift. Respect for nature is necessary educate from childhood as well as respect for elders, culture of behavior in society.
For a long time craftsmen used natural material for the manufacture of various crafts, many of which have outgrown their narrow utilitarian purpose and turned into genuine works of art. Gained worldwide fame Fedoskino and Palekh caskets, widely known Dymkovo and Filimonovsky clay toys, the famous matryoshka doll is very popular in our country and abroad.
All natural materials can be divided into two large groups : plant and mineral. Plants include leaves of trees and shrubs, bark, flowers, straws, cones, acorns, chestnuts etc., to mineral ones - sand, shells, pebbles, etc. The list of one and the other groups is quite extensive, therefore, based on local conditions, you can always find material for any homemade product.
When collected natural material It is difficult to predict what exactly will go into making a particular craft, since creating toys is a creative process. A toy is sometimes born impromptu, so much more material is collected than is required for one or two classes. Must be at hand big choice everything you need.
Storing natural material is not difficult. Technology the preparation of some of them will be discussed in the relevant sections. It is not recommended to store natural material in bulk. It must be sorted by type and store either in folders or boxes. This makes it easier to find during work and contributes to better safety.
For working with natural materials use various instruments. Thin branches are cut small pocket knife. A saw is used for sawing with fine teeth, sometimes a jigsaw. The work requires a hammer, pliers, an awl, a small drill or brace with a set of small diameter drills. Small parts made of natural material are difficult to handle in your hands, so small vise or hold the parts with tweezers.
Natural materials must be processed on a special table. If there is no such table, you can use for work an ordinary board on which is nailed plank with wedge-shaped cut for holding parts. This device is used when planing wood carpentry workbench.
Previous articles in the series “Introducing a Child to Nature”
Review of ideas and crafts
1. Fossils
I “took out” this idea from our Asian travels. In Thailand and Bali, plant imprints poured in concrete are often used in the design of any building. Perfect beauty! It feels like fossils with traces of ancient ferns. I've always wanted to bring something like this into my home. So far, we have only tried to make crafts using this technology with children.
You need to take wet sand into any vessel, pressing it firmly. Then use leaves, flowers, or better even something more textured, for example, pine cones and branches of Christmas trees, to make imprints in the sand.
In a separate container, dilute the plaster and pour the resulting solution into sand with prints. Leave for several hours, or better yet a day, for the plaster to harden. On the reverse side we also signed where whose works are, because... Children are very jealous of property =)
You can use the resulting plaster molds in the design of your home, especially if you do it more carefully. With sand, of course, the option turns out to be a “rough” one, just for children’s games, but for home it’s better to make a “finish” one. To do this, instead of sand, you can use soft plasticine or salt dough, for example. Spread it on the bottom of the vessel, make plant imprints on it, and then fill it with plaster. The result will be more accurate and clear. I always use plaster, by the way, this one, I’m already buying my tenth bucket and couldn’t be happier :)
And we decided to deal with our fossils differently than just decorating the house with them, which is discussed in the next paragraph;)
2. Archaeological excavations
I buried these fossils in the ground, maybe in a sandbox, for example, and gave the child a young archaeologist’s kit - a shovel and a brush :) Mishutka happily dug and carefully cleaned the “antiquities” he found with a brush =)
You can complicate the task by drawing, for example, a map of the excavations and teach your child how to navigate the area. But this, I think, is for children from 5-6 years old, Mishutka and I managed simple option digging in the ground :)
3. Ancient glaciers
Another interesting option- freeze your natural finds. To do this, take any plastic molds, put plants or flowers there and fill with water room temperature. The last condition is mandatory! The ice will turn out clean and transparent only if the water is at room temperature. Carefully place the molds in the freezer. After a few hours, or better yet a day, you can get ready-made ice cubes.
You can play with them in a completely different way. For example, we created a “penguin world”, where ice cubes served as particles of our habitat.
You can play, for example, in the Ice Age with dinosaurs. Or make ice garlands from flowers frozen in ice. In winter they will look very impressive! In general, it all depends on the imagination of mother and child;)
4. Stampings
A simple, but very entertaining version of the game is to make stamps using collected leaves. You can simply stamp, making prints in different colors, you can assemble it into a single thoughtful compositional pattern, or you can back side wallpaper to make wrapping paper for the holidays, stamping leaves in a certain color rhythm.
The child simply paints the leaves in different colors, and then applies them to paper. A variety of prints are obtained.
Despite the simplicity of the idea, the children had a lot of fun making prints of a wide variety of leaves.
5. Stencils
My favorite teacher showed us this method. primary classes. My result then came out so amazing that it stuck not only in my memory, but also in my soul, forever =) On a simple White list paper, you lay out different pieces of paper, press them with something heavy so that they do not move accidentally. Then take a brush, or better yet an old one toothbrush, dip it in paint and start splashing it. You simply shake the brush over the paper, but in the case of a toothbrush, you need to move it back and forth along its hairs with some kind of stick. Colorful splashes fly in all directions.
Take different colors one after another, in any order and concentration. Spray all the voids on the sheet with it so that there are no white spots left at all. The better you cover the leaf with splashes of paint, the clearer and more beautiful the result will be.
The leaves can be placed randomly on paper, like Mishutka in the photo above, or you can put them together into some kind of design, like Sashulya. This is how her butterfly turned out.
We could have completed the elements of the butterfly, but we left everything as is, now such beauty hangs on our “honor” board :)
6. Applications
After our applications, I accidentally came across information on the Internet that this type of creativity is very popular in Japan, and is called Oshibana. Wow! But the children and I just decided to make some figures out of leaves and twigs, gluing them onto paper =)
Mishutka simply liked the process of spreading glue, i.e. his work turned out to be more spontaneous than something thoughtful. But Sasha, in my opinion, made a very beautiful bird, I imagine some kind of crane with a long neck =)
While I was preparing this article, I read about osibana and found these interesting examples.
In my opinion just children's version- make a kind of zoo. The animals turned out very cute =)
7. Herbarium
The good old herbarium has not lost its relevance to this day. A child can literally turn into a young naturalist by collecting and drying various leaves and plants, pasting them into an album and signing names, as well as other details.
Surely many people remember how to make it, but I’ll write it anyway :) You just collect various leaves, flowers, twigs, in general, a wide variety of plants. You put them between the pages of a thick book and leave them until better times. Usually for several weeks. Plants dry out in a flat state, so they can then be easily pasted into a notebook or notebook, resulting in a sort of botany book.
Or you can decorate your herbarium in frames just like this, and decorate your home with these stylish “paintings.”
8. Prints
In this game, the result, as you can see, turned out to be rather scary, but in the original the pictures come out very beautiful. But apparently my lack of enthusiasm affected the children too. To tell the truth, I am against such “entertainment,” but I still offered Sasha and Misha this option for “crafts.”
This imprinting method is based on the secretion of plant juice. It is the juice that colors the white sheet of paper. Well, in order to squeeze the juice out of the flower so much, you need to hit it with a hammer. I’m not a Greenpeace fanatic, but it’s somehow wrong to first teach children to respect nature, read books about it, and then brutally hammer on it. That’s why we took the grass that had already been mowed earlier, and not fresh, juicy flowers, and so the result turned out so-so.
But I objectively understand that this is just my worldview, and we are all different. Therefore, if you still decide to try, then you need to take watercolor paper, carefully lay out a small bouquet of flowers on it, then cover it with a sheet of plain paper on top, and tap on this sheet with a hammer. When you remove it, you will get a beautiful print. The only advantage of this exercise for me is that this way you can explain to the child that juice different plants can be used as paints. Remember the history of how natural dyes were made before. This can be seen very clearly here.
9. 3D coloring pages
Any natural materials can be painted! You will say that this is banal and generally some kind of nonsense, but I don’t think so at all. It is all the more important what exactly you do. Don’t just give the child a dry stick he found to color, but invite him to make little people out of these sticks and let everyone wear their own clothes. Or in winter we decorated the cones in different colors, so that we could then tie strings to them and hang them as toys on the New Year tree.
“3D coloring books” are suitable for both older children and the youngest. For example, Mishutka painted these shells for me when he was 1.5 years old, when we lived in Krabi. In the morning we collected shells at the sea, and after a quiet hour we sat and created =)
Or, also made from shells and paints, this is a version of fish in the sea. We didn’t paint the shells themselves, but we glued them onto cardboard, first painting it with gouache. Eyes were glued onto the shells themselves (these are sold in creative stores). Below I have made a selection of products that we used for all these crafts, among which there are eyes, maybe it will be useful for you too;) And Misha also made this picture about a year and a half ago, maybe even a little earlier.
And just the other day, a variety of stones became the object of our coloring; in general, you can come up with a lot of things with them in order to use them later in games. Here we have houses made of stones for our board games, which we come up with one after another and draw with chalk on a graphite table.
I’ll definitely tell you more about this table and what you can do with it, so you can be the first to know when the post comes out.
I would like to note that this coloring option is ideal for the little ones. The fact is that it is difficult for kids to color standard pictures without going beyond the boundaries. Therefore, it is better for them to decorate some real objects, for example, clay pots, wooden blocks or toys (available at craft stores) or any suitable natural materials. Agree, it is easier for a child aged 1-2 years to feel the boundary on some object than on paper. Therefore, there is no need to ask children to color ordinary coloring books too early; let them color three-dimensional objects. Don't forget that the best way to do this is acrylic paints, not watercolor or gouache.
10. Plasticine vases
Another simple but fun way to use natural materials such as shells, small pebbles or some seeds (watermelon, pumpkin, etc.).
Take any bottle or vase or, like we did, a clay pot and ask the child to coat it with plasticine. This greatly develops motor skills, because it’s not easy work =) And then, together with your child, glue your selected natural materials to this plasticine, pressing them with your finger. Kids should be helped. Mishutka also made such a craft when he was 1.5 years old. I didn’t press him so that he covered the entire surface of the pot with shells, because... For small child it's complicated. He only made a border out of shells, but in my opinion it turned out well =)
Then we planted a flower in this pot, the child also “worked” himself, and then we presented this flower directly in the handmade pot to Mina, a Thai girl, to whose birthday we were invited. I wrote about this in my article How Tiger went to his Thai girlfriend’s birthday :)
Of course, there are a lot of variations of games with natural materials. I covered only a small fraction of them, but even these dozen games will bring variety, children’s interest and a desire to understand nature and the world around you to your summer activities.
Art supplies
In addition to natural materials that you can not only collect, but search for through discovery games, for these crafts you may also need the art supplies that I used in these games.
Nature teaches, educates. Remember “Three hundred pages of the “Book of Nature” by V. A. Sukhomlinsky, his famous “school under the blue sky”. Man is the master of his land, a master, not a waster. A caring attitude towards nature must be cultivated from childhood, just like respect for elders, culture of behavior in society.
For a long time folk craftsmen used natural materials to make various crafts, many of which outgrew their narrow utilitarian purpose and turned into genuine works of art. Fedoskino and Palekh boxes have gained worldwide fame, Dymkovo and Filimonov clay toys are widely known, and the famous matryoshka doll is very popular in our country and abroad.
All natural materials can be divided into two large groups: plant and mineral. Plants include leaves of trees and shrubs, bark, flowers, straws, cones, acorns, chestnuts, etc., minerals include sand, shells, pebbles, etc. The list of one and the other group is quite extensive, therefore, based on local conditions, you can always find material for any homemade product.
When collecting natural material It is difficult to predict what exactly will go into making a particular craft, since creating toys is a creative process. A toy is sometimes born impromptu, so much more material is collected than is required for one or two classes. There should be a large selection of everything you need at hand.
Storage of natural material presents no difficulty. The technology for preparing some of them will be discussed in the relevant sections. It is not recommended to store natural material in bulk. It must be sorted by type and stored either in folders or boxes. This makes it easier to find during work and contributes to better safety.
D for working with natural materials use various tools. Thin branches are cut with a small penknife. For sawing, a fine-toothed file or sometimes a jigsaw is used. The work requires a hammer, pliers, an awl, a small drill or a brace with a set of small-diameter drills. Small parts made of natural material are difficult to handle in your hands, so to secure them, use a small vise or hold the parts with tweezers.
Process natural materials necessary on a special table. If there is no such table, you can use an ordinary board for work, on which a board with a wedge-shaped cut is nailed to hold the parts. This device is used when planing wood on a carpentry bench.
Wood products are especially popular among hobbyists natural materials. They will perfectly decorate both the interior of your home and the landscape. personal plot. Made from wood original toys and household items.
Crafts and decorations made from natural materials are the brightest trend recent years. Many needlewomen also master new techniques - crafts made from wood, stones or dried fruits. Read our article about using dried oranges for decoration.
Decor made from natural materials (wood, pine cones, dried fruit) is beautiful, environmentally friendly and very stylish. In a word – a real trend. If you also want to learn how to make this kind of decoration, our master class on how to dry oranges for decoration is for you.
Rocking chair is almost synonymous have a cozy holiday and comfort. What could be better than relaxing in such a chair with the steady sound of rain outside the window or the crackle of logs burning in the fireplace? In our article we will tell you how to make a rocking chair with your own hands.
Making crafts from wicker is a very old craft that has not lost its relevance today. Anyone who wants to join this not an easy task, our article will be useful. In it we will look at the basic techniques of wicker weaving using the example of creating a box from a wicker.
Wicker weaving has been around for hundreds of years. During this time, people learned to make a variety of things from flexible rods - from boxes and baskets to furniture. Handmade things made from wicker are environmentally friendly, durable and very beautiful. However, wicker weaving is not an easy task and requires certain skills. Read our article about how to weave a wicker basket with your own hands.
Hiking in the forest for mushrooms and berries - these Nice memories from childhood remain for life. Especially if the kids are allowed to participate in the collection and are given their own small basket for this. Don't know where to get one? Weave it from vines. Our master class will tell you how to do this.
Craftsmen do a lot of things from flexible willow vines - from baskets to furniture. However, the difficult process of wicker weaving is preceded by an equally important process of material procurement. Without knowing its basic rules, hope for good result not worth the effort. Read more about harvesting willow vines in our article.
The art of carving - curly cutting of vegetables and fruits - allows you to create real masterpieces with your own hands. Be sure that even an ordinary watermelon, decorated in such an exquisite way, will delight your guests. Read more about carving vegetables and fruits in the article.
The technique of skeletonizing leaves is not at all complicated, although it requires accuracy and a sufficient amount of time. Crafts made from such leaves turn out incredibly beautiful. We will tell you more about this technique in our article and show how you can use such leaves in decoration.