Fall Swirls

The trees are a swirl of brightly coloured leaves, or at least they were until we had some really strong winds and they all blew away.



Here is a great little fall project.









MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- nice paper for painting on
- green masking tape (painter's tape) optional
- acrylic or liquid tempera paints
- pencil or black pencil crayon
- oil pastels

PROCEDURE:

Tape paper onto art board using masking tape.  This will give us a nice white border.

Using white and blue paint your background.  You want a white oval off centre and then light blue and darker blue.  Have the kids paint in a circular motion.

Set aside to dry.

This one was with acrylic.

I did this one with disk tempera to compare.

Starting with brown, paint dashes around our oval.

With brown we stay away from the white oval.

We then add orange covering some of our brown dashes and work a little closer into the oval.

After orange we add yellow.

As we get into the centre with the yellow add a little white paint to mix a really light yellow.


Set aside to dry.

When the paint is dry remove the tape.

With a pencil or black pencil crayon draw your tree trunk.  You want to come from the corner closest to the centre of your swirl.

You want it to look like you are looking up into the tree.

Using black oil pastel go over your tree trunk lines and fill in.

Now you could just leave it at this point but oil pastel looks better if you blend it a bit.

In my studio I would just use a paper tortillion but at school we don't have them around so the kids use a q-tip.

If my lines are quite fine I will take the q-tip and break and use the little broken end to blend my fine branches.

Here is a comparison of acrylic vs liquid tempera.


The acrylic covers better (more opaque) so your lights are brighter.  For the liquid tempera I added some dashes in pencil crayon in orange, yellow, and light yellow to help with this after the paint was dry.


Gail

Fall Forest Landscape

This is a project that was inspired by my recent homework assignment on complimentary colour relationships.

The orange/blue combination always gives me a strong feeling of fall.

In my assignment I worked a landscape thru different complimentary colours varying values to create different moods.

This was my orange/blue series.

and this was the painting that inspired this project.

I quite liked the way the colours blended and how it looks like I have figures in the foreground. 
Can't wait to continue working this series.














MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- paper for painting, I used a heavier piece for the background and some regular drawing paper for the hills
- disk tempera paint in orange and blue
- liquid tempera or acrylic in orange, blue, white, and black
- masking tape
- scraps of corrugated cardboard
- scissors and glue
- china markers, pencil crayons, or chalk pastels, optional

PROCEDURE:

This piece is more dramatic with a vertical presentation so cut/use your paper to this advantage.

My paper was 12"x8"

Tape off your edges.

Using a ruler mark off your horizon line in bottom third of your paper.  The horizon in this piece is a lake so we want that nice straight line.

Using disk tempera or watercolour paint in your sky. 


Set aside to dry.

Take a piece of drawing paper and paint with liquid tempera or acrylic.  I used blue and white mixing a bit to also get a light blue.

I want variation of colour and to see the brush marks so don't over work this.

Set aside to dry.

Now paint an orange piece of drawing paper.  I had some leftover from the last project so I just used that.  Let dry.

I wanted a bit of texture on this piece so I used some bumpy craft foam to print on some blue and white dots.

By now my background paper is dry so I add some blue disk tempera or watercolour in the lake area.




Let dry....this is where those hair dryers come in handy!

Now it's time to cut my blue and orange papers for my hills/mountains.

I like to measure the width I need and cut the paper to fit.  I'm making my marks on the back.

I then turn the paper over and draw on my hill. I like to pick what part of the paper I want to use.


Cut and glue into place.

I have my hills on the same side of the paper but you could also have one on other side for a different composition.

To print on my trees I'm using a few pieces of corrugated cardboard.  I just use the edge and I will tape several pieces together to get a thicker line if I want.


The trees need to be fairly dark so it's black with a touch of blue....a little white got in there as well :)

A practice page is always a good idea.  Here I'm using up some extra blue paint.

Now those trees will have some highlights, they will be picking up light from that orange sky so I add just a few touches of orange.

At this point I realize we needed a little dark on the other side to balance it a bit so using watery paint (black with a little white) I added a few tree lines on the distant shoreline.

I watered it down because I want them to be hazy...they are in the distance.

Finally I added some china marker but you could use pencil crayon or chalk pastel.

I outline my hills/mountain by following the paper and add some strands of grass in front of the trees.

That's it.

Using different complimentary colours gives your paintings a whole different feel.




Gail

Nature File Folder Book: Part 2

We continue on with the Nature file folder book.

These are the first inner pages.



















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- acrylic or tempera paint
- cotton swabs (Q-tips) or extra pencil with eraser on end
- nature stamps
- white paper
- old book page
- plastic wrap
- scrapbooking paper scraps
- straw
- spray paint or inks if you have them otherwise you can use sponges
- yellow paper 
- black buttons
- pinecone pips, optional
- scrap of yellow felt
- coloured feathers


PROCEDURE:

We now have to paint the inside pages.


The first inner page has a big sky section and and a strip of grass.

For the 2 middle pages the kids chose whatever colours they wanted.

The last page needed blue on top section and bluish green for bottom section.

When the paint has dried paint a nice tree with black acrylic or liquid tempera.

Using a cotton swab or pencil end dab on some leaves in fall colours.

The 2 middle pages are where a lot of info gets added in science class.  Tuck in the bookmark, add tabs, tags, and cards.

I had some nature stamps so they kids used these to decorate these pages.

Take 6"x3" or so sized paper and paint a light green with disk tempera. This will be your frog so pick whatever colours work for you.

While the paint is still wet lay a piece of plastic wrap on top and scrunch it a bit.  Leave on to dry.

While your paints are out paint an old book page with some stripes.

We will use it to make the reeds in the pond.

Now we are going to use some scrapbooking paper to make the rocks.  We also used some extra painted paper I had on hand or you can paint some.

Cut out the rocks.  Add a fish if you want.

Add some bubbles using a straw and some white paint.

Cut some reeds out of the painted paper or scraps you have.

Glue into place.

Cut out a frog from the paper you previously painted.  Add some details in black pencil crayon or fine marker.  Glue on a goggly eye.

You could also make your frog sitting on a lily pad if you wanted.

I had some butterfly embellishments from the Dollar store so we added as well.



Back Cover:

Take a piece of brown kraft paper (about 5"x 7") and spray on some paint or ink.  You could also sponge on some colour.


This will be our owl body.

When dry turn over and make an owl body.  Cut out.

Time for the eyes. Cut out a large white circle, a smaller yellow circle, and then add a black button.

To make the feathers we painted some of the pips taken off a large pinecone.

If you don't have these available you could just make them from paper.

Glue owl onto back page.  Add some coloured feathers (Dollar store) for the wings.

Using a scrap of felt cut out a triangle beak.

Glue on the feathers.

You can add some text to label your owl.

That's it……I know a lot of steps but what a great book at the end that ties into science.

Here is some student work in progress.

See you next time.


Gail