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Painting with Plants: Art Challenge

To start off with, I was invited by a friend to participate in Draw With Jazza's August 2017 Challenge of the Month. Feeling confident that in a jury of our peers, anything that I drew would be rated above anything that she drew, unless we were both drawing horses (her specialty), I agreed to this challenge before I had the chance to brush up on what this might entail. Little did I know that I was agreeing to create a piece of art made with non-art materials on a piece of paper. Having said that, allow me to give you a run down of how to create a watercolor-like painting with an Aloe Vera plant and some food coloring.

Step 1: Chop off a few sprigs from your least favorite, and least likely to die, bit of Aloe Vera.

Step 2: Squeeze and roll the Aloe Vera sprigs between your fingers to break it up and release the gooey liquid inside. Do this until you have an acceptable amount of liquid to work with.

Step 3: Use a toothpick to add very small amounts of food coloring to the Aloe Vera until you get the desired color. Be sure to test this color on a spare piece of paper. I placed a drop of food coloring in a separate bowl to make this easier and then used a plastic toothpick so the color wouldn't soak into it. 

Step 4: Pull out a paintbrush and paint. Treat it like a very watered down version of watercolor. I was too lazy to mix a second color so I ended up just adding more food coloring to get slightly different shades.

All in all, I think it turned out pretty well. I might even keep the leftover "paint" to do some more art stuff tomorrow. 

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