Hi kids!
We were in quarantine last week. Yes, this darn coronavirus has now caught up with us, but luckily it wasn’t serious; today we’re all healthy again.
But we’ve had plenty of time to get creative, and first, we’ll show you how to paint a truly beautiful wildflower meadow with watercolors in just a few steps. There’s a trick, and anyone can do it.
Our mormor (Grandma) always says the best gift is a bouquet of wildflowers. Wildflowers aren’t just pretty to look at; meadows are an important habitat for bumblebees, bees, and butterflies, supporting their biodiversity. This means that the more colorful meadows, the more diverse and colorful the butterflies and other insects.
However, industrial agriculture, monocultures and the use of pesticides in particular make life difficult for insects and rob them of their habitat.
>> Monoculture means that farmers only cultivate one type of crop. For example, only corn or soy for years. Unfortunately, because this type of cultivation is easier to maintain and produces higher yields, it’s very popular.
They also use pesticides, which are poisons designed to keep pests away.
This one-sided planting and the use of excessive amounts of toxins have led to a veritable decline in bees and butterflies, which has dire consequences for humans and nature.
When the small flying insects collect sweet nectar, pollen sticks to them, which they then carry to the next flower. This process is called pollination, and it’s crucial for reproduction – for ensuring that new plants continue to grow and for the survival of many different plants.
Honeybees are the most industrious pollinators. Without bees, many of our foods wouldn’t exist. Whether fruits, vegetables, nuts, honey, or herbs – many of these foods depend on pollination.
This is why bees, butterflies, and other insects are so important for the preservation of our natural environment. Fortunately, some regions have understood this and are at least trying to combat it. In recent years, more and more farmers have been planting wildflowers between their fields, and sustainable agriculture is increasingly being supported.
Many wildflowers are also medicinal herbs and help our bodies heal. For example, the blue-purple meadow sage helps with sore throats, while chamomile has anti-inflammatory properties and is good for a sore stomach.
Because our treatment of nature has threatened many species of wild plants with extinction, many are protected. This means we are not allowed to pick them. These include, for example, monkshood, arnica, most ferns, all carnations and gentians, squills, chess lilies, and pasque flowers, as well as all wild orchids, crocuses, tulips, and daffodils.
Through nature conservation, we try to protect rare species, maintain biological diversity (i.e., ensuring that as many different plants as possible grow in nature) and preserve habitats.
For us it means that we should treat our nature with care and consideration ❤️
Instructions for a watercolor wildflower meadow
Today we’ll show you how to easily paint a pretty, colorful flower meadow. It’s a lot of fun because everyone can participate, and the results are super pretty. We certainly felt like real artists and are honestly quite proud of our work.
You need:
Watercolor paper (you can also try other papers. It’s important that the paper is a bit firmer and absorbent)
Watercolor paints
Water
Brush (pointed and medium-thick, preferably not flat bristle brushes)
Pen, black and thin
possibly kitchen paper (toilet paper or tissues also work)
1. Take paper, brush and a glass of clean water.
2. Then dip a brush into the water and dab a generous drop onto the paper, spreading it into a blob.
Wherever you make a dab of water, place a flower. This flower will be the same size as the blob of water. If you want larger flowers, make larger blobs; for small flowers, make smaller blobs.
3. Next, color the blobs. Dip the brush in paint and then carefully dab it into one of the blobs of water. The color will spread naturally within the blob. The more paint you use, the darker the flowers will be. If you want them lighter, use less paint.
4. Now let the colored water blobs dry completely. This can take a while, especially with the larger blobs. Some of them had so much water that we got impatient and helped things along a bit by carefully soaking up some of the colored water with a paper towel.
5. Once the paint blobs are dry, the stems, leaves and flowers are drawn with a thin pencil.
The colorful blobs of paint are the flowers. You can draw small dots for seeds, circles, small stems, or even a spiral on the colorful flowers to make the flower look like a rose.
From each flower, draw a stem down.
Draw small leaves on the stems.
You can have fun with it and come up with something different for each flower if you want. The great thing about it is that wildflowers are allowed to grow wild.
6. Now it’s time to color the stem leaves. You can color them green or choose another color. Irma chose black. That looks very pretty, too.
Here, too, don’t be too precise. Dab a little color on the leaves and let the color go over the edges a bit. This will only make the flowers more unique.
7. The final step is to add a few splashes of color to the image. Of course, you don’t have to do this if you like it better without.
But the splashes of color bring a little more life into the picture.
For the paint splashes, we dipped the brush in paint and tapped it with our finger over our image. The tapping caused the paint to splash from the brush.
If you have a lot of paint on your brush, the first splashes will tend to be larger. If you prefer them smaller, you can tap off some of the paint on a paper towel before applying the splashes to the painting.
..and it’s so easy to paint a pretty, colorful, and wild flower meadow!
Flowers aren’t just important for preserving our natural environment. They also represent friendship, love, and peace. Messages we should send out much more often.
Many flowers are symbols that prevent the victims of past wars from being forgotten. For example, the forget-me-not is meant to remind us of the number of victims that war brings. But what good does that do if people keep waging war?
For us, it’s unimaginable what war means. We’re very fortunate that we’ve never had to deal with it, and we find it hard to imagine what happens in a war, how people in war zones fare, what they experience, and how they feel. But we know that it’s probably the worst thing people can do to each other, and that we want to grow up in a world without war.
Even if the grown-ups are on the verge of destroying our future, we children are the future, and that’s why it’s so important that we do better. We should always remember to be kind to one another and not judge anyone just because they’re different. Together, instead of against each other, we can protect our world before it’s too late.
Because these issues are so important, we want to plant flowers not only as a symbol against forgetting, but also as a symbol of our diversity and friendship. We want to paint our future as beautiful and colorful as a wildflower meadow. We are all unique, and if we stick together and look after one another, we can save animals, people, and nature.
Everyone can do something. Be kind to one another so that we can experience and discover the world in friendship and peace.
