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)