Hello again! As you know, since lockdown, I’ve been posting fun activities to do at home every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding holidays, I’m not a madwoman.) This is my 20th post, and I think this round number is a good point at which to take a break – hopefully I have built up a helpful bank of activities that you can dip into as and when you feel the urge!

For my last ‘fun thing to do’, I want to revisit the idea of creating pictures from nature that I shared as the third activity (for a reminder, click here), based on my book, Jacob Starke Loves the Dark. This time, the focus is on making rubbings from nature – using crayons, charcoal, chalk, whatever you have to hand – and using these rubbing to make a picture.

20: Making a picture from nature rubbings

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During lockdown you have to make do with what you’ve got in the house. I would have loved to have done this with coloured chalks, pastels and charcoal, but what I had was wax crayons, so this is what I used.

To make up for this lack of variety, I used different types of paper, as you can see in the three step guide below.

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Top tips:

• if you’re taking your rubbing from an object that can be moved (eg a leaf, rather than a tree trunk), put it on a hard, flat surface first
• use a variety of different mark-makers (chalk, charcoal, pastels, crayons) if you have them
• use the side of your crayon etc for rubbing, not the tip
• use a variety of different papers you have around the house – newspaper and brown paper work particularly well, but also baking paper, silver foil
• you could always draw in some details, if you feel that way inclined

Have fun, and don’t forget: I’d love to see what you create – you can email a photo to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford