I was recently looking through different art projects I could do. I took a water colouring class in college and have not really practiced much since the class. The last time I painted anything was in December and that was after several years. So I thought I’d try something fun and simple to kind of get back into it. I found a few suggestions, including one about using okra to paint. It is really fun to do even if you’re not the most artistic person. I think it would work well for kids, too. Okra is also quite inexpensive and readily available.
The supplies you need are:
- Fresh okra (the number you need depends on the number of colours you have – I’d say 1 piece of okra for 2 colours. You may also want to get a few extra in case some pieces are too fibrous or you ruin them when trying to deseed them)
- Paint (I’ve only tried water colour, but you can experiment with acrylic, etc.)
- Small paintbrush
- Knife
- Tissue
So here are the steps I took:
Step 1: Wash the okra and let it dry.
Step 2: Slice the okra across into 2 or 3 pieces. The idea is to have pieces that you can easily hold and manipulate. Try to cut the pieces as straight as you can so that the paint applies easily more easily onto the paper.
Step 3: Deseed the okra. You can use the knife to pull out the ones on top carefully or use the back of the brush to push them out through the other end.
Step 4: Brush some paint onto the okra. Make sure you don’t wet the okra too much or else the print will smudge. You can use scrap paper to test out the different consistencies.
Step 5: Transfer onto the paper. I found that you can stamp each piece about 2-3 times before you have to repaint the okra.
I went for a field of flowers:
And flower fireworks:
I had a lot of fun. It was a bit time-consuming so this would probably be good as a collaboration or you can do this on a relaxing self-care day as you watch or listen to something.
Tips:
- Because the okra is slimy, when you brush more paint on, the holes can be covered by the slime and mess up the print. You can poke them with the back of the brush.
- If you find that you only got a partial okra stamp or it is too faint, you can easily go over the print by aligning the corners over the print and applying a bit more pressure (or repainting the okra and then doing that).
