WIldsmith inspired trees

After reading, "Squirrels," by Brian Wildsmith, the students were enthralled with the artwork. We made Wildsmith inspired trees. The children painted a tree trunk outline with water colors from the bottom to the top of a 8x12 inch piece of manilla paper. Branches were added by dipping a stick into brown tempera paint. Birds and woodland creatures were drawn with markers and filled in lightly with water colors. The last part was the most fun! The students filled in the tree trunks with pastel colored abstract designs using water colors.

The Leaves are Falling....

Autumn leaf compositions were created by third graders using the following steps and techniques.
Detailed black ink pen drawings were were made of leaves that the students collected. Tracing was not allowed. Each student was to draw 4-5 leaves.

Layers of crayons were put on the pen drawings.

A layer of black water color was painted over the crayon.

The leaves were cut out and matted individually on black paper to create shadows.

The cut out matted leaves were glued onto a background paper. Black or white lines were added to fill in the negative space.

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