Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Treescapes, Two Ways










Talia, I love how you never care to look at the others' work.
Your art is always what you want it to be. :)

My example


I have been doing so many animal themed art projects lately, I thought it was time for me to do a some nature based lessons. It is especially appropriate given this beautiful time of year. (Yes, even in Southern California there is a hint of fall in the air.) The first lesson was inspired by the gorgeous treescapes I found on Flickr here. The quality of artwork from the students of this art teacher just blows me away. I could "pin" every single piece. To start I had the children dry brush onto large black construction paper. I gave them acrylics in the primaries and purple and asked them to brush from side to side. No need to clean their brush, just continue onto the next color. They could also choose any order to paint their colors. This allows for such unique results. Because acrylics dry so quickly, they were able to do the next step during the same class. We used oil pastels to create our trees. From here they had two options, to create leaves using oil pastels or (in thinking of my kindergarten students) they could dip their fingertip in yellow, orange and red paint to create their fall leaves. They could also add a moon, stars, shadows and some grass or plants if they chose.

The inspiration for my next treescape was found via Pinterest at the Georgetown Elementary Art Blog. I knew my all girl class would love to create these brightly colored backgrounds with silhouette trees. I offered a variety of acrylic colors and they could choose how simple or elaborate to make their backgrounds. Once this was dry they used small brushes to paint their tree silhouettes. (artwork by children 5-7)

7 comments:

  1. Beautiful compositions.
    I love the boldness of colors and the elegance of lines.

    Your students did a fantastic job

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  2. OOH I love those paintings on black paper. They are so moody and lovely. Kudos the artists! (and teacher)

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  3. Oh Mary these are soooo beautiful! I'm so glad you discovered those projects on Flickr because I could've pinned them all too!Your student's interpretations are amazing!

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  4. Thanks all! The treescapes on black are a favorite of mine as well. I enjoyed seeing which direction each student would take them.

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  5. Love these- the two different moods created by the different colour combinations is powerful.

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  6. Beautiful trees - love the contrast in color and style! Thanks for the Georgetown Blog shout-out too!

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  7. I love this entry. I'm teaching my grandkids art for their homeschool curriculum. I was so excited to find this idea. I just made my own treescapes (the first two on this page) and was really pleased with the results and look forward to having the kids do this as well. I love all that they can learn and experiment with in this project. Thank you for your wonderful ideas. I've made this site a favorite.

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I appreciate your comments and feedback!