How to Make Leaf Stencils

Looking for a fun project that blends art and nature in a fun way that kids of any age can enjoy? Try these leaf stencils that use recycled objects, paint, and any leaves you like!

Materials

• Save your old toothbrushes in preparation for this project. You will need one toothbrush for each colour of paint. Firm or medium brushes work better than soft ones.
• Plastic trays from cracker or cookie boxes or clam shells from produce can also be saved to use as palettes for the paint.
• Three plastic containers (ice cream or yogurt size) to use as water containers.
• A small set of non-toxic liquid tempera paints (this is the paint that may be called “poster paint”), food colouring mixed in a little water, or try making natural dyes with food scraps!
• Paper. Water-colour paper is best but any paper will do! Use scrap paper from your office recycling bin!
• An old rag for clean-up.
• Approximately six fallen leaves of various shapes and sizes to use as stencils. Also collect a handful of pebbles to use as weights on the leaves (pennies will also work).

Optional materials

• A bucket and a fingernail brush are helpful for cleaning up.
• To display your finished picture, you may want to buy or make a small frame. Or attach your stencil picture to a slightly larger sheet of coloured cardboard by putting dots of glue on the four corners of your picture and then gluing it to the board.

The process

1. Select one of your large leaves and place it on one sheet of paper from your sketchbook. Weigh the leaf down with pebbles or pennies (don’t let the weights overlap the outside edges of the leaf).
2. Pour a small amount of paint into one of your tray palettes. Select one toothbrush. Dip the brush into the red paint so that the flat edge of the bristles is covered with paint.
3. Hold the toothbrush with one hand so that it is tipped down, approximately 2” from the paper.
4. Make a fist with your other hand, and firmly rub your index finger knuckle along the bristles to spatter the paint around the edges of the leaf. You may need to add more paint to the brush as you work.
5. When you have finished spattering the paint around the first leaf, leave it in place on the paper.
6. Add a second leaf to your paper and weigh it down. Pour some yellow paint onto your palette. Select another toothbrush and proceed to spatter the second leaf in the same way as the first. Some of the yellow paint will overlap the first red spatter.
7. Again, leave the second leaf in place and add two or three more leaves, partially overlapping the first two. Weigh them down and continue to spatter with blue and green paint. Again, some of the blue and green colour will overlap the red and yellow.
8. Finally, carefully remove the pebbles and leaves to enjoy your beautiful stencil picture. The leaves will appear mostly white on a coloured background. Set your artwork aside to dry.

Advanced stencil art

1. Now that you are an experienced stencil artist, you may want to make a slightly more complicated picture in which the leaves will appear as white and coloured leaves on a coloured background.
2. This time, begin by spattering red and yellow onto a new sheet of paper before you add the first leaf. Continue to add more leaves and spatter other colours as you did with your first picture. Finally, remove the weights and leaves to enjoy the art.
3. While you are working, put the used toothbrushes into your water containers so that the paint doesn’t dry in the bristles.
4. The brushes, the water containers and palettes, and the artists’ hands can be cleaned up with hand soap and water and reused over and over.

Download the printable version here.