I’m sure most of you love to draw and paint. But do you know that you can also create art using straws, pencil shavings, toothbrushes or veggies? Shall we get started?

Pencil shavings

Material: Lots of pencil shavings, stiff paper, fevicol, sketch pens or glitter pens.

Method: Collect lots of pencil shavings. Whenever you sharpen your pencils, sharpen them carefully so that you get nice, long shavings! Collect them in a box and when you have enough, get set to make a beautiful greeting card. Take a piece of stiff paper and fold it in the centre. Take the smaller pencil shavings (which form semi-circles) and stick them all along the edge on the left hand side and the base of the card. The longer shavings (which form circles) can be shaped to look like flowers. So you can stick them in the centre of the card (as shown in Fig 1). Use glitter pens to fill in the centre of the flower. Draw a few leaves to complete the picture. Write your message inside and your card is ready to be sent to your best friend. Keep collecting pencil shavings and you can make many such cards.

Straw painting

Material: A straw, sheets of paper, paints, a paint brush.

Method: Dab a few drops of your favourite colour, at equal distance from one other, on a sheet of white paper, using a brush. If the paint is too thick, dilute it with a few drops of water. Using a straw, blow air and spread the colour in different directions. Repeat this process using different colours at different spots on the sheet of paper. Continue till the whole sheet is covered with a design created by blowing on the colours. Leave it to dry thoroughly and your beautiful paper art is ready. If you are using coloured paper, you can make the design using white paint. You can use this colourful paper to wrap gifts or make envelopes.


Spray painting

Material: An old toothbrush, paints, scissors or blade, stiff paper, palette.

Method: Take a stiff paper and draw the outline of whichever shape you like. For instance, a flower, a bird, a star, a leaf, a heart, or a cute little dino (see Fig 2).  Now carefully cut this out. Please ask for an adult’s help when you use the scissors or blade, so that you don’t end up hurting yourself. What you have now is a stencil and a cutout, both of which can be used for spray painting. Take another sheet of paper and place the stencil over it. Now take some paint in a palette and dilute it a little. Dip the bristles of the toothbrush in the paint. Shake off the extra drops of paint. Hold the toothbrush over the stencil and using your thumb, spray the paint the blank space. Repeat the process till the entire blank space has been filled up. You can also use two colours. Carefully remove the stencil to reveal the picture. Complete the picture by drawing a few details like eyes and legs using sketch pens. Draw a few hills and birds and your drawing is ready. When you use the cutout, take another sheet of paper and place the cutout of your drawing in the centre. Now using the same method, spray the paint along the outline and on the rest of the paper. Carefully remove the cutout and your painting is ready. When you have perfected this technique, you can use it to decorate bedspreads, pillow covers or table covers using fabric paints, which your mom will love to use. You can also use it to highlight some of your plain T-shirts.

Vegetable art

Material: A potato, a lady’s finger, a cutter or blade, paints, sheets of paper.

Method: Take a potato and cut it into two halves. Carve the design of a flower on the surface of one half, using a cutter or a blade. You can take the help of your parents for this. On the other half, carve the design of a leaf. Dip the half with the flower design in paint and stamp it on the paper. Repeat to make 3-4 flowers. Now dip the half with the leaf design and stamp it to make leaves and form a beautiful picture. You can also make another picture with small flowers using the lady’s finger. Cut the lady’s finger in thick circles, dip in paint and stamp it to form flowers. Carve out smaller leaves from the potato to make a pretty design. This technique can also be used to embellish bedspreads, napkins and table covers using fabric paints. You can try to carve different flowers and leaves or even try out some geometric designs to make intresting patterns.