Here’s a fantastic outdoor art idea that’s perfect for forest school. We’re using natural materials found in the forest to make clay faces on tree trunks.
How to make clay faces on tree trunks
The forest provides and abundance of natural materials that we can use for a forest school art lesson.
Here’s an idea from a workshop run by Barefoot Ceramics at the Just So festival: tree trunk clay faces.
Ready-made forest school lesson plans
Have you got your copy of The Forest Classroom yet? It is the perfect beginner’s guide to running a successful forest school. Download your forest school guide here.
A forest classroom is a place of adventure, discovery, and imagination. It can also be a wonderful place to learn about math and science, explore art and crafts, and develop language and social skills.
The Forest Classroom is a practical guide which will show you how to engage your children in fun and educational forest-school activities.
These ready-made forest school lesson plans are suitable for forest school leaders, teachers, childcarers and parents with children aged 4 to 10, to learn in a forest, school nature area, local park or your own backyard.
Get your copy of The Forest Classroom here and you’ll be ready to head straight outdoors and enjoy teaching, using our ready-made lesson plans.
Materials needed
:: natural clay (or play dough if you’re working indoors)
:: natural materials such as leaves, twigs, pine cones and needles, seeds, bark
:: trees!
Begin by gathering natural art materials from the forest floor.
Make sure your children know what is safe to gather and then have them collect a selection of materials to use as loose parts to make their clay sculptures.
Give each child a chunk of natural clay and get them to knead it to soften it. This is a wonderful exercise to develop hand and wrist strength.
(If you’re working indoors, you can use play dough as an alternative to clay.)
Then find a good tree and firmly press your clay on to the bark of the trunk. Use your fingers to form the clay into the outline of your sculpture’s face. You might build the shape up to create a nose, chin, and ears.
You might know straight away what face you want to make, or you might play with the clay until it begins to form into a face of its own.
Use the natural materials you have gathered from the forest floor to add details to your clay face.
You can use sticks, fir cones, leaves, and pine needles.
You might use a stick to draw marks into the clay.
You can create friendly faces or scary ones.
Maybe you’d like to make an animal?
Go on a walk around your forest art gallery and take a look at all the clay faces your group has created.
As we’re using all natural materials, the sculpture can be left to return to the forest floor once the wind and rain have done their work on the sculptures.
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Love the creativity and outside is awesome. Come visit me at toddlersthroughpreschool.com sometime.
Cathie J
Will stop by soon Cathie J 🙂
Oh love this. Given me an idea to do with the girls in our garden 🙂
I’d love to see a picture if you try it zingzingtree
This was certainly one of my favourite activities, and it was lots of fun looking at what everyone had created – there were some true masterpieces there!
I loved just how different each one was Jude.
These are lovely, I love playing with clay myself but haven’t introduced it to my kids yet. I love the idea of doing this on trees and using found natural objects to decorate.
Yes, it’s a great combination, isn’t it Vic?
they are just beautiful, I wonder how long they will last?
I don’t know Kirsty, as we’ve only ever made them and left them after a few days. Time to try them out at home I guess!
Cathy (? don’t see a by-line) glad you & yours had fun doing the clay faces workshop – perhaps we’ll catch you again next year.
Have Fun!
Paul
@ Barefoot
Hope so Paul! Thanks for stopping by.
These are really wonderful. I love the whimsy in them.
I love the creativity of this! Thank you so much for sharing :-). I’ve shared on my fb page and pinned. I cant wait to try it! Reminds me of a similar activity we used to offer in my reception class in the Autumn – Nature Walk pictures. We would go on a nature walk, and use what we collected to create a picture. The children always came up with such different ideas it was exciting to watch.
Very creative activity with clay and nature.. I love this and will apply this idea
For my summer camp.
I love this, looking for art in nature ideas for this summer, definitely using this. Is there a particular kind of clay to use?
Hi Maria. I would find a type of clay that’s all natural so that it’s OK to use and leave in the wild.
Where does one purchase the clay used for the tree masks, or can I make it myself?
Hi Susie, I’ve bought clay from our local craft store and online from Amazon. If you have a heavy clay-based soil where you live you might be able to use that too.
Thanks, I thought it might be a specific type of clay. I would think school modeling clay would not work.
Indoors, we’ve used a school-type air-drying clay with natural materials and that works fine. If you’re making – and leaving – them out in nature I’d look for a brand that uses ‘pure’ ingredients so the clay is OK to be left in the natural environment.
Thank you for your helpful suggestions!