Autumn Collage Tree

This autumn collage focuses on squares and rectangles to give the tree a pixelated like appearance.

















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

-2 pieces of paper for painting
- square piece of heavier paper for background
- paint, I used acrylic but you can use disk tempera or liquid tempera (yellow,orange,red,brown,green,blue,dark blue,white)
- pencil crayons, wax crayon, and/or pastels
- glue
- scissors

PROCEDURE:

You want to start by painting the paper for your squares. I wanted colours ranging from light yellow to dark red.

For the first paper I start by painting the yellow on one side.(1/3rd) I even add a touch of white to my last strokes on the end to give me a really light yellow.
I then paint orange on the other side. (1/3rd)  In the middle I pick up yellow paint with my brush and a touch of orange and paint that middle tone in.  I like to see the brush marks so don't feel you have to have it perfectly blended.

For my second paper I paint one side orange and one side red. When I finish my red side I added just a touch of brown to my last strokes to give me that nice dark red.
 I paint in the middle tone with both colours.

Set papers aside to dry.

I used a square piece of heavier paper for my background.

I taped it to my art board so I would get that nice white border at the end.

Draw a few lines at the bottom for your horizon, somewhere for your tree to sit.

Paint in your sky.  I like a bit of variation in my sky so I made one area darker.  This is where my tree will be in shadow.  I like to see those brush marks so again don't feel like it has to be fully blended.

Paint in your ground area.  I made that same area darker.

I made my hill in the distance a bit duller, (add a little brown to your green) this makes it appear further away.

Paint in your tree.  Now most of the branches will get covered but it helps to give you a visual framework of where to put those leaves.

You'll have more control if you use some dry media for your smaller branches.  You can use pencil crayon, wax crayon, or even pastels.

I bought a bunch of twistable pencil crayons this year as I am so tired of having to sharpen a gazillion pencil crayons every time we use them at school. We'll see how they hold up.
I also added a little bit of grass strands in front of the tree, some shading down the trunk on the dark side, and some marks with white pencil crayon to show the texture of the bark.

When my papers have dried I cut my squares and rectangles. About the size of a fingernail.

You need more than you think as we will be layering our colours.

Just look at all that gorgeous colour!

Before we start gluing just remind yourself where we want the colours to go.

We want lighter values on one side closer to top and darker values on other side closer to bottom.
It also matches our background.

Now it's time to glue.  Start with your middle colours.  With older kids have them glue squares and rectangles straight up and down, (it helps with that pixelated look).

I know that younger kids will glue them more haphazardly and that's ok it will still look good.

Keep on gluing layering and overlapping.  Leave a little of the background showing here and there.

As you get to the end add those darkest reds and lightest yellows.

You can also cut some of your squares in half making some skinny rectangles to place here and there on your top layer.

Prop your collage up and take a good look at it from a distance......you can see where you need to add a few more lights or maybe some darks.

Add a few on the ground and that's it.




Another stunning autumn tree.


Gail

Stamped Autumn Tree

Ok,  just one more tree project and then I'll move on.




This is a very easy one that is quite striking.  It includes use of a homemade stamp.













MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- wc paper
- watercolour paint or disk tempera, blue, green. black, and Fall colours
- spray bottle with water
- scissors
- sticky back craft foam
- piece of corrugated cardboard, wood, or even a small candy treat box (smartie)
- ink pad

PROCEDURE:

Tape off wc paper onto art board.   Paint in a sky starting with lots of blue paint, then gradually just painting with water to create a graded wash.


Paint in a horizon line and the ground.

Let dry.

Take 1 or 2 scraps of wc paper.

Paint with Fall colours, spray some water on to get the colours to mingle a bit.


Set aside to dry.

When background has dried paint in a tree with a few major branches.



Let dry.

I love, love, love using craft foam to make my own homemade stamps.  It's kid friendly, no carving or using sharp tools, cheap, and produces a great effect.



Having sticky back foam makes it super easy but you could use regular craft foam and just tape in place with a loop or glue in place.

 You could also use store bought stamps.  I'm always picking up some from the dollar bin at Michaels.

Cut a leaf shape out of the foam.  Using a pencil and pressing hard draw your detail lines.

Remove the sticker paper and stick to a base.  I often use wood (2"x2") that
is cut into cubes.  You can also stick to corrugated cardboard or even to an empty little treat box.

Cut out some leaf clumps.  Stamp on your leaf stamp here and there.


Glue into place on the tree.

That's it for this one.

Here is another variation.  The individual leaves are cut out.

The tree is cut from painted paper and the small branches are done in pastel.


The stamp on this one is made from plasticine or modelling clay.

Roll your modelling clay into a cylinder shape.  Tap one end on the table to make it wider and flat.

Carve your design into the clay with a toothpick or skewer.

Instead of a stamp pad I used black tempera.


See you next week.

Colour Wheel Trees

I'm starting a new residency tomorrow and this is a project I'll be doing with Grade 1-2.

Similar to all those Kandinsky tree projects out there only focusing on the colour wheel.

















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- substrate (base), you could use paper, canvas, poster board.  I'm using 1/8" MDF
- acrylic paint in yellow, orange, red, purple, blue and green, and whatever background colour you want
- sandpaper
- paper for painting
- assorted card stock, scraps of scrapbooking paper
- white glue
- printed text of colour words
- kraft paper
- brown acrylic paint
- homemade Glimmer mist (how to make)
- Mod podge for sealing

PROCEDURE:

I cut my MDF boards to be 1'x1'.  I purchased them at Home Depot at $2.95 for a 2'x4' piece.  That works out to 37 cents each when cut!


If your MDF has a shiny finish rough it up a bit with some sandpaper, just a little scrub is all that is needed.


Paint with your base colour, because I'm sealing these with podge I'm using acrylic.  If you are not sealing then you could use tempera.

I made up a paper in Word that has colour words all over it.  I cut this into strips.

Mix up a glue/water solution (1 to1). Take a piece of kraft paper about the same size as your board and start covering with the strips.  Dip each strip into the glue mixture and then apply to paper randomly.

Set aside to dry

Take 6 pieces of paper and paint in your colour wheel colours.  On each one I added an extra layer of texture, stripes, dots, sponge, bubble wrap, plastic wrap.

Let dry.

When my text covered paper was dry I painted it with some diluted brown paint.

I sprayed on some glimmer mist in white and black.  To find out how to make your own on the cheap check out this post (scroll down).




Let dry.

Turn over to the back, trace out tree shape.  You need 6 main branches for the 6 colours on the wheel.



Cut out.  With the Grade1-2's I'll have some templates if needed.

Glue onto your background.

Cut circles out of your painted papers.  Each branch represents a colour on the wheel.

For green, orange and purple I added a leaf that has the 2 primary colours and then the resulting secondary.

Glue into place.

Add a coat of Modge podge to seal.

That's it.


Looking forward to tomorrow!