I don’t think painting stones and rocks will ever get boring! There’s just something fun about painting on a surface that isn’t paper and is found in nature. These painted stone fruit characters are a fun little project for kids of all ages.
I think what I love about painting on stone is that it encompasses a whole journey.
You and your kids get out of the house to go in search of the perfect stone. Depending on where you live this could be to a local stony beach, a river or a lake.
Then it’s like your own little treasure hunt for that perfect stone. And once you’ve found a few perfectly shaped rocks, it’s back home to turn your stone into an amazing miniature artwork!
For this project I have used Resene test pot paints. I really like using Resene paint on stone because it seems to dry quicker, and covers much better, than your standard store-bought acrylics.
I ran a little experiment the other day to see which one had the best coverage. And I discovered that not only did the Resene paint easily cover the best, it also dried the fastest too. This was really useful because I was running a little cactus stone painting party for kids in my art studio. And I needed a paint that was easy for the kids to paint with, and would dry quickly.
These little stone fruit characters were inspired by the nostalgic Munch Bunch. This was a great cartoon that used to be on when I was a kid, which is giving away my age!
I’ve given you the full instructions on how to make the kiwifruit character. And you can use similar steps for the other characters. Or, pick your own fruits and give it a go. You could try pineapple, papaya, or even a peach!
How to Make Painted Rocks – Fruit characters
You will need
Stones – medium and small
Resene test pots in Japanese Laurel, Roadster and White
Black and white paint pens or permanent markers
Hot glue gun and glue
Lace flowers (optional)
What to do
1. Collect a bunch of different stones that you think would make good fruit shapes. Make sure to collect a few smaller ones for the feet.
2. Choose the type of fruit you would like to paint on your stones.
3. I chose a kiwifruit, a water melon slice and a strawberry.
4. To paint a kiwifruit start by painting in the middle of the kiwi. This part is a very pale green. To do this I mixed a tiny dab of the green into my white.
5. Now painting outwards from the middle use Resene Japanese Laurel. Don’t worry about having the White on your brush as this creates a nice paint effect. Continue painting from the middle outwards all the way round.
6. Using your black marker add a cluster of seeds around the middle of the kiwifruit centre. Then draw in the eyes and mouth. You can paint these in, but I just found using a marker easier to control for the finer detail.
7. Using a white maker place a dot in the middle of your eyes.
8. For the back of the kiwifruit I wanted to create the brown skin. So I mixed straight onto the back of the stone Japanese Laurel and a small dash of Roadster (red) to make a green brown. Keep painting the two colours together until they make one smooth brown colour.
9. For the feet you will need two similar small stones. Glue these onto the base of your stone fruit.
10. To help them stand up you will also need to attach a small stone with the glue gun at the back, down toward the bottom.
11. If you like, you can stick some little lace flowers on for a bit of cute factor.
Have some fun and see what fruits you can create. We always love seeing your creations so #kiwifamiles on Instagram, or email us a picture and we will post it on one of our social channels.
For more fun rock painting ideas check out this post.
For hundreds more art ideas, check out our Creative arts and crafts section.
