I know potatoes and apples are usually the big ones when it comes to making stamps for painting, but I really like using eggplant tops because they have a fantastic little handle on them that is just the right size for grabbing and leaves hands pretty mess-free. (Another low-mess tip for stamping, paint the stamp instead of smooshing it into a pile of paint.) I also love the fact that we aren’t using something that would otherwise be eaten, these tops were headed for the compost anyway (and using natural paints means they can continue their journey to the compost once the art is complete.)

After we stamped to our hearts content, my son helped me cut up the rest of the eggplant so we could roast it for dinner. He was pretty excited to see the eggplant used in two different ways, for art and for deliciousness. Two fun projects with one material, and we got to spend almost the whole afternoon immersed in eggplant. Score! Both of these projects build fine-motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and cognition and art is always good for the creative process (which has been shown to help boost mathematical and scientific thinking, so get your art on!)

Finding other “food tops” are great for stamping projects, like a pepper or end of a cucumber. I also like to cut the core out of the apple and just use that, instead of just slicing a whole apple in half. That way you can snack while you paint and still send the core to the compost. What else do you use for stamping in your art projects?

The eggplant leaves help to give the art texture.