How to Paint Fall Trees

Here is a good Fall painting project you can do with your kids.



Crayola sent me a Fall art project to try, however when I looked at it (thru my how to teach this to 20 kids eyes) I was skeptical. The original directions called for you to do the tree first and then add sky and leaf color. I immediately thought MUD. As soon as the other colors hit the tree it would become muddy.



Here is my version, my kids did the test this afternoon and I think it will be a hit at school.





Let's get started.

Materials:

acrylic or tempera paint in Black and Fall colors, paintbrush,
paper (choose a heavy sketch pad paper, ie bristol with a little texture), a drinking straw,
newspaper to protect working surface, art shirt to protect little people's clothes
low tack masking tape (optional), gator or cardboard(optional)





Place a piece of paper on your work surface. If you want you can tape your paper onto a gator board or a piece of cardboard covered in wax paper.

At school we use Art Boards, I'll talk about them at the end of this post as I find them essential in a school setting.

We thinned down our acrylic paint to make it more like watercolor paint,( ie acrylic paint+water). Tempera will also work well but save your expensive watercolors for other projects.




Paint over entire surface with different Fall colors. We are trying to keep the colors somewhat separate. They can run together a bit but we don't want it to become one single mixed shade.


Let dry completely.








Take your black paint, (could also be ink ) and make it quite watery. Using your paintbrush or an eyedropper drop in some paint at the bottom. We wanted a strong trunk so the kids used the end of the straw like a brush and pulled the paint up a bit. You could also just use a paintbrush for this step.












Add more black paint where you want your branches to begin and blow the paint as far as you can. Try to get as many branches as you can. You can move your paper around if this makes it easier.






Keep blowing until you have the tree looking the way you want it to.

Let dry.

Remove tape if used and you have a great Fall Tree painting.




Finished Masterpieces


Allie, age 10
































Jeff, age 5








Ryan, age 8



ART BOARDS - at school I have the kids work on art boards. I go to Home Depot and get a full sheet of Masonite ( its what clipboards are made of ) cut into desktop size. One sheet will give you 12 boards. I don't give them the measurements they use their handy cutting machine to do that. When I tell them its for an elementary school they do all the cuts for free, got to love those guys at Home Depot.
It's not very expensive and these boards can be used for years. I then take duct tape and tape around all the edges to protect those little fingers. These boards also fit perfectly into those wire drying racks the school has. Art boards have saved me from endless desktop cleaning and they help support the work while it dries in the rack.
I'll be getting some done up this week so maybe I can post a picture of one.

see you later
gail