Ink Tree

This tree is one of the activities I planned for the children's art workshops I did the week before last. There are three stages to making it.

First I put several blobs of ink (I used sepia calligraphy ink) across the top half of the paper. Then I blew through a plastic straw, spraying the ink upwards in different directions. This makes the branches.

Using a brush I connected all the ink splatters together and painted the tree trunk.

For extra details I used a wooden kebab skewer dipped in ink to draw on to the trunk of the tree.

I also blew the ink to make the tree roots.

I love how this picture is made from just one kind of ink but the different techniques used make it look really varied.