Mushroom Spore Print Art

Missy

• Published on October 12, 2021

Hey hey! My name is Missy and I’m an artist and guest blogger here at PBS KIDS Utah. I love mushrooms! I love to draw them, I love to hunt for them, I love to eat them! Sometimes I come across mushrooms out in my yard or my local forest and I want to know what type of mushroom I’ve found. One way of identifying mushrooms is by making something called a “spore print.” After making a few of these, I realized they would make beautiful artwork. So I am going to teach you how to make some mushroom spore print art.

Note: kids should always gather mushrooms in the presence of an adult. Avoid eating wild mushrooms if you are not 100% sure of their identification!

Supplies:

Mushrooms from your lawn, the forest, etc. (store bought mushrooms don’t work for this craft!)
White copy paper, or grey art paper
Disposable gloves
Water dropper or spray bottle
Clear storage container

Add a drop of water to dark-colored mushrooms, or lightly paint white mushrooms with watercolors to get the color variety you want.

Instructions:

Put on the disposable gloves and carefully remove all the stems of the mushrooms.
Place the paper in the clear storage container.
Arrange the mushrooms underside down on the paper.
Drip a small drop of water on each mushroom cap. Or spray a light mist of water over them all.
Put the lid on the container and leave it alone for 24 hrs.
Come back and take the lid off. Pull up each mushroom and reveal the print it has made!

Here is what an unstained mushroom print looks like. If you look closely, you can see the prints left behind by the white mushrooms! What do you think they would look like if we tried using grey paper instead?

Wrap-up:

For this project, I had to experiment a lot. Some of the mushrooms I used made a white spore print, so they didn’t show up very well on the white paper. Grey paper might have worked better for the white mushrooms. I tried again with different mushrooms and still got some with white spore prints. So I painted over the white ones with watercolor, kind of like a stain. This kind of experimentation merges art and science, which is really cool too! Be creative and have fun!