I am always looking for ways to incorporate more of my favorite small, non-vascular flowerless plant into my life. And when I discovered that this verdant floor fauna could be used as paint, my little art major mind exploded. And, bonus, it's really pretty simple to do! So if you too want to live out your Monet's house, hobbit hole, cottagecore dreams, read on to learn how to make this heavily gentrified form of what loosely qualifies as graffiti!
What You'll Need:
Moss
Buttermilk
Water
Sugar
Blender
Paintbrush
A building in need of moss
First Step!
Gather ingredients (mainly moss)
I found the moss I used in a shady area behind my house but once you start looking, you'll find it pretty much everywhere there is shade. Keep in mind where you plan to paint on the moss because different varieties work better on different surfaces. I mainly used moss that grew on trees and brick since I was planning on painting a brick wall.
Second Step!
Wash & blend moss
Rinse your moss to remove as much dirt as possible and then rip it into smaller clumps. Place in blender and add a teaspoon of sugar, a small amount of water, and less buttermilk than moss, it's more about consistency than quantities so this is relative to how much moss you have. You're looking for the consistency of the inside of a stress ball or wet cement. Blend until combined. Small lumps are encouraged. And it is supposed to smell bad, it's the buttermilk.
Step Three!
Paint on moss mush (and wait)
This is the fun part! Choose somewhere that is in constant shade and sorta damp and glop on your design. You can use chalk to outline first but I just went freehand with a koi fish design! Really glop that gloop on there, you want enough blended moss corpses on there to make sure it grows. Now mist the moss weekly and wait for it to grow. Mine was pretty stagnant for the first 2-3 weeks but took off and filled in really rapidly after that. I think some got washed off with the rain so I reapplied the paint after about 2 weeks and that seemed to help! The final image is about a month of growth with regular misting.
Step Four!
Enjoy & repeat
Continue to mist your moss to keep it growing and apply lemon juice around the edges to keep it from spreading too much. This moss paint is pretty versatile and I've seen it be used for loads of other things. Some of my favorite other applications are statues, stone pathways, and tree decorations! But you can put it on pretty much anything you don't mind having moss on. And don't worry if it doesn't start growing at first, try re-applying more moss mush and waiting a few more weeks. Moss can be a little finicky depending on what variety you use.
But have fun & watch out for poison ivy when scavenging for moss!
Comments