Wild Art at Strumpshaw Fen

Blog by Melanie Beck, Assistant Leader of the Norwich Nuthatches

The Norwich Nuthatches March meeting at Strumpshaw Fen was a fun morning looking at different types of Wild Art. We began with a photography quiz. Many people now take fantastic photos of all kinds of nature. The Mammal Society had just announced the winners of their photography competition and Group Leader John gave us all a pen and paper and set us the challenge of seeing how many of the mammals in the photographs we could name. We all enjoyed the photos of mammals such as foxes, stoats, mice and squirrels caught in some unexpected moments and the children proved their mammal knowledge was better than some of the adults!

Our main activity was to see if we could make our own paint using materials that nature had created and then make pictures with it. We began by going for a short walk into the bug hunting area and then towards the clearing by the meadow to collect things such as leaves, soil and moss that we could use to make paint. We even found some sand, petals that had fallen from a gorse bush and the last few hawthorn berries that the birds has missed. We also collected things that we could try using to paint with including some twigs, grasses and leaves.

Before we headed back John gave us some paper and crayons to have a go at tree rubbing. If you have never tried it, it’s very easy to do. Put a piece of paper against a tree and rub over the paper with a crayon. The texture of the bark comes through. We found some bark is quite smooth whilst other trees are rough, bumpy and flaky. Try it for yourself!

As we had become quite good at describing the different types of bark we then played a game where in pairs one person closed their eyes and the other person led them to a tree and got them to feel the texture. They were led away again and then opened their eyes and had to find the tree they touched. It’s not as easy as you might think and Pacey found that hugging the trees gave a good clue as to how round the tree was. Everyone managed to find their tree after a little detective work.

It was then time to head back to have a go at making some paint. Using a mortar and pestle everyone took one natural ingredient and a little water and ground them together to make a paste. Some were easier to grind, with the petals and soils the easiest. The moss and leaves were made of tougher stuff but eventually we had several different colours. The leaves and moss were shades of green, the mud and sand came out as they should in shades of brown. The gorse petal became a very nice yellow but the red hawthorn berry surprised us as it did not make a bright red but a dull purpley red colour. The only thing left to do was to try out our freshly made paint and make some pictures. Some beautiful pictures of birds were created. We found some of the leaves printed very well and some of the twigs if used like a pen were great for details and the grasses made good brushes.

It was a very creative morning and we didn’t know that nature could provide everything you needed to make some wonderful wild art!