Creative Bug Hunt: From Dried Leaves to Colorful Bugs

Colorful bugs made out of painted leaves and pieces of paper. Photo by Angela Forero.

One word that always comes out when I am reading or listening to content related to creativity is “observation”.

When we observe, we are looking carefully and gathering information about the object in question. This act requires us to focus and pay attention to details, helping us form a perception of the world around us.

We came out with this activity during our morning walk. While we walked around the neighborhood, Antonia started to notice the leaves on the ground and realized not all of them were the same shape. I suggested to her picking a few and bringing them back home to make something, and ended up making colorful bugs out of them.

Do It Yourself

Materials:

Dried leaves, different shapes and sizes
Acrylic paint
Acrylic markers (optional)
Brushes
Regular white or tracing paper
Tacky glue
Lacquer (optional)

Steps:

Carefully and very gently clean up the leaves with a lightly humid cloth, and dry them up.
With a brush paint the leaves in its entirely using the acrylic paint, let them dry. We painted the leave with two separate colors. A bright one for the body, and black for the head.
Once the leaves have dried fully, use a thin brush to decorate with different colors. We used the acrylic markers for this step, but using a thin brush can work perfectly fine.
While they dry, use the white or tracing paper to make the wings. We used tracing paper, and used a brush with a very light mixed of black paint and water, to make marks on the paper. Then cut the paper making different teardrop shapes.
Optional: After the wings have dried, you can spray the lacquer all over the bug. This step needs to be done by an adult. Do it outdoors in a well-ventilated place. We did this step to help better preserve the color on the leaves.
Final step, glue the wings to the leaves (now the bugs) using the tacky glue.