Homemade Watercolour, by Kira

I have been wanting to make watercolour paint with the kids for a while now. Today we did some experimenting.

First we tried making paint with blackberries.

For starters, our crop of blackberries did not fare well during the drought,

so we were only able to collect a Fern-sized handful.

We ground them up with the mortar and pestle and added a wee bit of water.

It was way too watery. We were in need of more blackberries.

Then it was decided that we should be using something a little less tasty.

Beets! They are bright, colourful and we have lots of them in the garden.

Starting off with just a few, we chopped them up.

The leaves went in our salad for lunch and the stems and root into a pot with two or three cups of water.

I boiled this for about a half hour. It was not enough colour so I added another three beets and a little extra water.

Once the water was deep purple I pulled it from the stove and strained it.

The kids were thrilled.

They painted pictures and stained some wooden fish.

Auren and Fern are eager to see what other plants we can use to make colour.

We may have to tie dye some fabric, when there are a couple great colours made.

I think this technique that my friend mentioned in her post is quite neat.