Painting without Brushes – Using Grass Feathers

get the kids painting without brushes (using grass feathers)

I am so excited to have Georgina from Craftulate guest posting today!  She’s a British mama living in America.  On Craftulate, she shares tons of great crafty ideas for the kiddos.  Personally, I love reading about her toddler art ideas and fine motor activities. Today she’ll be sharing one of her many ideas for painting without brushes — painting with grass feathers!

I’d been looking at these grass feathers (or seed heads, to give them a proper name!) on our ornamental grass plant for some time before I realized they would make a perfect paintbrushes!  I felt bad doing it, but I cut three of the grass stalks from the plant.

Then I put out some paper and paint for F (2.5 years old), then invited him to come and investigate. It took him no time at all to figure out how to paint with these giant brushes, and he had a great time painting with them. They made different kinds of patterns depending on whether he jabbed at the page or made a sweeping movement. He called it a mop!

He created two pieces of artwork using this unusual method. One using a lot of paint on the “brush”:

And a second piece when we were starting to run out of paint:

I love both versions for different reasons!

I am always looking for creative ways of painting without brushes. We’ve also tried painting with a lint roller, paper plates, soda bottles, mesh fruit bags, combs, marbles, mega bloks, bubble wrap, and scourers!

Georgina is a British crafty mum living in America.  She loves spending quality time with her son and experimenting with a wide range of crafts and activities.  Be sure to pop on over to Craftulate and give her some love!  You can also find her on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus.

Novel Painting Materials

Since we already gathered the main material for this project from right outside, we really just added paint and paper. But if you’re looking for some other novel items to use for painting, I’ve made a list of some of my ideas! Here they are (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):

• Pine cones
• Acorns
• Sticks
• Leaves
• Feathers
• Flowers
• Rocks
• lint roller
• paper plates
• soda bottle
• mesh fruit bag
• combs
• marbles
• mega bloks
• bubble wrap 
• scourers

Done-for-You Preschool Resources

Planning meaningful lessons for students week after week, all while balancing other teaching responsibilities and a personal life, can be a daunting task. That’s where Preschool Teacher 101 comes in to save you time!

Preschool Teacher 101 is excited to share with you some amazing lesson plans, activity packs, and other resources made specifically for preschool. We offer a wide variety of themes that are frequently used in preschool classrooms as well as less common (but super interesting) themes. Since this post is all about painting with unusual objects, I thought it might be good to include products that explore color theory. Click on the images below to find out more!

Join The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101 today for exclusive access to our amazing products. And we even have three different membership options to suit your needs!