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

3D Fluttering Butterfly

Looking for something bright and fun for your last bulletin board....why not these fluttering butterflies.

Made from 2 butterflies to look like it's fluttering off your display.
















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- nice painting paper for background, I use Sunworks white construction paper.  It's not really construction paper but a great drawing paper.  You could also use 90lb wc paper.
- white cardstock
- disk tempera paint
- green, red, white and yellow acrylic or liquid tempera
- paper scraps, book pages, brown kraft paper, recycling
- coloured cardstock scraps
- pipe cleaner
- tacky glue
- oil pastels or crayons
- optional: rubbing alcohol and eye dropper

PROCEDURE:

Tape background paper to art board.

Draw in a rough horizon line.

Paint in your sky with blue disk tempera.  I wanted to give it some texture, like all the fluff flying around right now from trees and dandelions.

So while it is wet I take an eye dropper and some rubbing alcohol.

Drop onto your wet paint.  It creates this effect.  Don't panic if it looks a little brown or grey in the center of the drop.  That will dry and go away.

This technique also works with acrylic paint but the secret is having wet watery paint.  Brush on a little bit of water to your wet acrylic to get it to work.

Paint in the green grass.  Set aside to dry.

Take your scraps of paper and tear some strips.

Glue onto a sheet of white cardstock.  This will be your extra grass.

Let glue set up for a while.

When set,  paint with acrylic or liquid tempera.  You want the paint thin enough you can still read the words of the text.

Set aside to dry.

While your papers are drying take a 1/2 sheet of copier paper and a 1/2 sheet of cardstock.

Sketch your butterfly shape.  You want 2 the same size. You could draw one, cut it out and then trace around it or use a template.

I added some oil pastel.  You could also use wax crayon.

Paint with disk tempera.

Paint the back of the cardstock one as well.

When the background and grass paper are dry start cutting out strips (pointy at top) and glue onto your background.

I added some extra details to my butterflies with scraps of coloured cardstock and.....

a little extra paint just to jazz them up a bit.

Glue the copier paper butterfly into place on the background.

Bend 1/2 a pipe cleaner and glue in place for the antennae.

take the cardstock butterfly and fold in half.

Run some glue on that fold line.

Stick into center of other butterfly. Let it set up for awhile and then close the fold a bit again.  You want to keep a nice flutter to it.

That's it.

See you next time.

Gail

Flower Inchies

This spring I have done this flower inchie series with both Grade 3 and Grade 5, (different schools).


Amazing results.  As always each inchie represents a stand alone art project that you can do in larger form.













MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- wc paper, I used a 140lb cut into 3"x3" squares
- disk tempera
- acrylic paint
- white glue
- oil pastels
- a few buttons
- black beads
- black paper for mounting

PROCEDURE:

First up is the close crop.

1) Draw in pencil a close cropped view of a flower. Reference photos are always helpful.
2) With oil pastels do a bit of outlining.
3) Paint flower and background with disk tempera paint.

Painted Paper Collage

1) Paint a wc square a nice background colour with disk tempera.
2) Out of painted paper scraps cut flower petals. I have a stash of painted paper.  Whenever we paint we use up excess paint or paint extra to add to the stash.
3) Glue onto background and add a center.  Glue on a few beads as well to the center.

Black Glue Sunflower
1) Draw a sunflower on wc paper with pencil.
2) Go over lines with black glue.  I have a class set of black glue.  You can make it yourself by adding a few squirts of black acrylic paint into a white glue bottle. Shake and you are ready to go. I use the same set and just refill as needed.
Set aside to dry overnight, make sure it is lying flat.
3) Paint in with disk tempera.

Abstract Bouquet

1) Using acrylic paint I painted an orange splotch and blue background.

2) I added some dark purple parts to the splotch and then used it to show shadow side of vase.

3) I added a little green into splotch. I then took a little white paint and mixed a lighter version of both the orange and blue. I added the lighter blue into the background further defining the vase. I added the lighter orange into the splotch.

Drywall Flower 

1) Draw a flower shape onto cardboard and cut out.  Make sure it fits on wc square.

2) Cover with a little bit of drywall filler.

3) Set aside to dry overnight.

4) Paint background square. I used turquoise and green disk tempera.

5) Lay on a crumpled piece of wax paper. I then turn it over keeping the wax paper in place and put a magazine or something on top, (not too heavy). Leave to dry.

Next day:

6) Paint drywall flower with acrylic paint.

7) Glue on background.  Add some buttons in the center.

Hibiscus

This is one of my favourite painting projects to do with kids in the large form.  Do a practice drawing with the kids first.
1) Draw the stamen. It's like a horn or banana shape with dots or grapes at the point.

2) Next draw a petal, a ruffly rounded triangle shape.
3) A hibiscus needs 5 petals.

4) Do drawing on a wc square.
5) Add some oil pastel (white and yellow) to stamen.
6) Paint the background. I used blue and purple disk tempera.

7) Add a touch of red and pink disk tempera above the stamen.
8) Use a clean brush and wet it in some clean water. Just touch the edge of the center and pull out into the petal. You just want a subtle colour here. Repeat for all 5 petals.

That's it.

A great spring or summer art project.



Gail

Tipi Tri-rama

I have been making quite a few of these lately.  Now the tipi is an old project of mine but I realized I hadn't posted how to make the background.

This tri-rama has many uses or as a teacher told me this week, "This is a game changer".

Here are student examples from this week.



















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- tipi, use this post of mine to guide you
- file folder letter sized
- ruler and scissors
- oil pastels
- disk tempera paint
- white glue
- some moss and pebbles
- modelling clay in yellow. orange, and red

PROCEDURE:

I like to use file folders for these tri-ramas but you could also use manila tag or pasteboard.

Using a ruler draw a line down the tab on the right side when the folder is open.

Cut along the line cutting the tab off.

Inside the folder there is a box, using the bottom of this box draw a line.

Essentially we are making a square so if your folder does not have a box just measure until you a square.

Fold 1 corner across to another corner.

Do the same with the opposite corners so it looks like this.

Choose one corner, (only 1) and cut to the centre.

This enables the bottom sections to overlap and form your tri-rama.

But before we put it together we want to complete our background.

The students drew their backgrounds first in pencil and then went over those pencil lines with oil pastels.



On one of the bottom flaps we made marks to look like grass.

We then painted with disk tempera.

This is mine fully painted.  You only need to do one section on the bottom.

Before I glue I re do those folds so my sides will stand up nice and straight.

Spread some glue on the unpainted flap.

Fold the painted flap over top the one with the glue and press down to seal them together.

We glued in some moss.

Glued a ring of pebbles for a fire pit,

and a bit of modelling clay for the fire.

Add your tipi and you have a great little tri-rama.


Gail