Nature's brushes

Share examples of artworks created using unconventional “brushes” and discuss how artists regularly take inspiration from the world around them. Suggested artists include:  

• Yayoi Kusama (1929 – present): famous for her use of dots to create intricate and repetitive patterns, often using tools like syringes, sponges and her own fingers to apply the dots. 
• Julian Schnabel (1951 – present): in his "plate paintings," he used broken pieces of plates as a surface for painting and applied paint with both brushes and unconventional tools. 
• Jean Dubuffet (1901 – 1985): often used unconventional tools such as sticks, sand and his own hands to create textured surfaces. 

Main activity

• In an outdoor setting, give pupils the chance to collect a variety of natural materials they could use to make marks (e.g. pine cones, sticks, stones, dried flowers or leaves). Encourage them to select materials that are no longer living or attached to a plant. 
• Explore the selection of collected materials, discussing their various textures, shapes and the different marks each one might create. 
• By using only black paint on white paper, pupils are encouraged to focus on texture, shape and pattern rather than colour. It will also enable pupils to share natural materials without having to clean them. 
• Demonstrate dipping each natural material into the paint, or using a paintbrush to coat it in paint, and exploring the ways to create marks on a piece of paper.  
• Encourage experimentation with pressure, angles, repetitions and combinations of materials to achieve a variety of textures and patterns.  

• Support: Provide pupils with relevant vocabulary to support their descriptions of textures and shapes (e.g. rough, grainy, fuzzy, smooth, gritty, angular, curved, distorted, spherical, jagged).
• Extension: Explore how to combine different natural materials to create layered and varied textures or consider the overall composition and placement of their marks.