Fall Aspen Tree Art Lesson for Children, Step by Step

 Impressionist Aspen Trees In The Fall Elementary Art Lesson

I love how colorful these are - I took my inspiration from Artist Melissa McKinnon

The way she does the leaves and the rich colors are so appealing!

I showed my students her website and also talked about Impressionist Painting and Painters.

There are many ways to teach this on Pinterest etc..., but here is how I did it.

Materials Needed

2 sheets of watercolor paper

Watercolor paint in blue, yellow, orange and red

Acrylic paint in black, grey, brown, green, red, yellow and orange

Paintbrushes and sponge daubers

Scissors

Glue

Stiff mat board or cardboard rectangles

Begin by doing the trees so they can dry while you paint the background.

One really great thing about this lesson is there is no drawing involved.

Begin by making random small blobs of black and grey paint in a vertical line spaced apart however you choose.

Next take the mat board or cardboard and drag it along each line of paint blobs downward vertically to create the side of the tree trunk.

Work quickly so the paint doesn't dry and next drag the mat board or cardboard horizontally across each individual tree from top to bottom.  Not all the way across the paper but one tree at a time.  If the edge of the mat board becomes too covered with paint turn it and use another edge.  You don't want to have black trees, but white trees with black splotches.

Now set this aside to dry and get another piece of watercolor paper.

Next we are going to do a watercolor background.

I use liquid watercolor and demonstrate for the students.

Begin with loading your brush with blue paint and go all the way across your paper with the brush, when your brush starts to dry out add just water to the brush and go back over the blue some more leaving a wet edge.

Rinse the brush and add yellow, first with pigment only, and then with water and again leave a wet edge.

The beauty of watercolor is it will blend on the page, transitioning from blue to green to yellow.

Working quickly rinse and add orange and red in the same way.

Tilt your paper up and let the colors run together to get those lovely variations and blending of color.

Next dry this watercolor with a blow dryer or if you have time take a break and let it dry.

I explained to my students that the blue is the sky, yellow in the middle is leaves in the distance on the trees, and the orange and red are the leaves that have fallen to the ground.

Now cut your trees apart on the page of trees, you should be able to cut right down the middle of the black line on the edge to keep that black line on both trees.

I had the students arrange their trees to their satisfaction and then glue them to the background.

You can print some branches with the black paint and mat board if you have time.

Next are the leaves - this is a busy project!

I began by asking my students to start with brown or reddish brown first and do 10 dots on the lower part of the painting, balanced evenly. Mentioning these are the leaves that have fallen off the trees.

I was afraid if I turned them loose they would put the dots everywhere and not have room for the other colors, this worked out well.

Next we did red, then orange in the same manner.  I mentioned to be sure and put some orange near the top because blue and orange are complimentary colors.

Finally we did yellow and I told them they could do as many yellow as they wanted.

We added just a few green leaves at the end.

Here are my young artists Fall Masterpieces!

     Have fun Creating this joyful celebration of Fall!

Romero Britto Pond Life or Frog Watercolor Art Project

 

My 2nd grade students are studying Pond Life and Romero Britto is so much fun I thought they would enjoy making a bright and colorful frog in his style.

I showed them several of Romero Britto's Frogs, fish, etc... to give them an idea of his work.

Then we did a directed drawing of a frog, they didn't have to do a frog, if they felt confident enough they could do another pond animal.  

I like to do directed drawings as an option because some students are so intimidated by drawing and also it helps them to draw nice and big and fill the page with the painting instead of a little frog in the center of the page.  They also learn how to translate an image into lines and shapes which will help them draw on their own.

We started by doing the middle line between the eyes and then added the two bumps for the eyes.  

Then the lines down and outward from the eyes and an arc for the base of the face.  Two curved lines for each of the front feet, the bottom of the front feet and add the inside curved lines for the front feet. Finally the two bumps for the back feet and the toes at the bottom.

Once they had the outline we used up to 5 straight or curved lines to divide the space within the drawing. 

I asked them to do their best to create balance with the spaces.

I kept the Britto Images of Frogs on the Promethius for them to refer to.

We had already discussed Britto's use of pattern within his painting.  He puts his initials in his designs so I encouraged my students to also add their initials to their design.  We discussed balance and how he balances his colors and his patterns.  I asked them to look at their frogs and be sure they were balanced in terms of pattern.  

The next step is to go over their lines with a fine point Sharpie which won't bleed when we do the watercolor over the top.

They erased their pencil lines and prepared to start painting.

We discussed warm and cool colors, complimentary colors and balancing colors like Romero Britto does.

We used liquid watercolor because it is so vibrant.  

I only gave them one color at a time and asked them to paint one or two sections of their animal.  

Each time I gave them another color I asked them to balance this color with what had already been painted and to think about which colors look best next to each other.

They really had fun doing this project and were happy with their finished work.  Below are several examples of what my students created.

Some of the artists chose to cut their frog out and put it on another piece of paper.  Others painted the background - I love how they turned out!

Andy Warhol Endangered Animal Elementary Art Project

 

Our 3rd grade students are in an animal unit and they were interested in doing some Andy Warhol inspired art.

You will need:

White paper

Pencils and erasers

Foam plates

Water based Block printing ink

Breyers and plexiglass for rolling the ink

Colored pencils to add color to the print 

A blow dryer if you can't let them dry before coloring

Background paper in bright colors

Although Andy used screen printing we will use a block printing process to make ours.

Students will draw their animal on copy paper and then tape them to foam plates.  

I buy regular foam plates at the store and cut the edges off to get a nice square or round flat piece of foam.

I made stencils of the outside shape of the animals in the size of the foam plates.  That gives them a head start on the inside details.

These are the stencils I made:

Once they have chosen their animal, (and if they don't want to use the stencil they don't have to) they can start filling in the details inside the shape.  I put the Warhol art on the screen for them to refer to and also showed them black and white versions to help them find the lines.  I demonstrated how to add the details  by finding the clues the shape gives you.

This simplifies the animal and makes it less intimidating to draw.

After they draw their animal and we tape it to the foam they trace over their drawing making a light impression on the foam.

Then they remove the paper and retrace their animal deeper into the foam to create distinct lines for better print quality.

This is the faint image after tracing, below is the inked plate after retracing the lines deeper.

Here is the print before color is added using colored pencils.

When the students are ready to color their print we talk about warm and cool colors.  If you print with a cool color of ink like we did then warm colors will really PoP, but you can also still use cool colors.

We also talked about complimentary colors, and layering colors like Andy Warhol does.

Below are my students amazing examples:

 We are setting up our tent trailer and wanted to share a few things we figured out - not an art project, but Still Creative : )

Forest River Rockwood Freedom 1950

So when we received the Pop up or Tent Trailer the Shower wasn't assembled.  There was the rack for the shower curtain hooks, the hooks and two curtains.  We couldn't find any instructions anywhere and were trying to figure out why two curtains instead of one.

One is a shower curtain and another is for privacy across the top of the trailer in the middle.

Once you get all the shower curtain hooks into the track you can start hooking the shower curtain on.  The middle where you get in and out will have velcro to keep it closed and they should line up.  The side closest to the faucet will be a bit longer than the side with the toilet and there are velcro strips to attach to the sides of the shower base.

The Photos clearly show the different lengths of the shower curtain to accommodate the shape of the shower base and toilet.

When we received the trailer the shower head was attached to the bottom of the shower stall enclosure.

Our old tent trailer had the shower at the top.

In order to get the shower head to the top we started searching for a way to make something that would work.

First I ordered a longer hose that would reach to the top of the shower.  

Next I found this organizer at Target.  It has a hook at the top that works great on the track the shower curtain is attached to.

I also purchase a new shower head that is supposed to be better at giving you more pressure and it had another holder included.

I installed the new hose and shower head and then hung the organizer from the shower curtain track.

Then I zip tied the nozzle holder to the organizer and I couldn't believe it worked!

There are also the little baskets for shampoo, soap, etc...

This is so much better and wasn't very hard to do.

I hope this helps other people who would like to shower hands free in their tent trailer : )