Pointilism Fall Trees

Its fall and its time to start giving the K-1 class a bit of Art History. Pointilism is one of my favorites and the materials a re dead simple. Q-tips and some paint!

I told the kids a bit about Pointilism and the artist George Suerat, and then quickly went to the paint. They could draw lines with the black paint but had to use up and down dots for the leaves.

So simple, but so graphic!

I'm always blown away by how differently each child interprets a project.

Handprint fall leaves

After the K-1 class finished their paper self portraits, they did some autumnal handprint leaves.

I had them trace their hands with black marker and make sure they overlapped to create interesting positive and negative shapes. Within these shapes they were to fill with different colors of warm fall color: red, orange, yellow, brown etc.  This was again a lesson on warm colors.  Plus it was a good test of patience and ability to listen!

Week 2: Leaf rubbing

Another Fall staple are leaves of course. In this project, I took a similar tact to my apple printing from last week. This time they were "printing" but using the leaves under the paper they really could explore texture and layering by rubbing with crayons. For 5-year-olds, I was impressed by their stamina and understanding of the concept.

Week 5: Fall leaves watercolor

We've been doing a lot of drawing and line work this Fall, but I wanted to add in some painting-this time watercolor.

For this assignment, I had the kids view various leaf shapes and try to understand their symetry and layout. Then we drew a leaf shape (it could be very realistic or more whymsical) on a piece of white watercolor paper with a light crayon. The idea of wax resist was also part of this lesson.

Next they use watercolor in various ways to get color. Blotches, stripes, wet-on-wet, and spatter were all used.

The kids did seem to really get ino the painting part!

Week 4: Fall Leaves

Since I haven't done anything seasonal yet, I decided to do something related to Autumn. (If you say "FALL" in Mrs. Dillon's room, all the kids fall to the floor;-) I had the kids cut out colored paper leaves that they perforated with pushpins to give them texture and to let light through when hung in a window. I hung them with rustic looking twine. I got this idea from Family Fun magazine.



I drew three different shaped leaves and photocopied them for each child. They then cut these out and used them as templates for the colored paper. Then with pushpins they made vein lines. Hung in a window they look nice.



Some of the kids even used the white templates and colored those with crayons. The older kids were very quiet and intent on their jobs during this project!

2008 Fall projects

Here are some of the projects I did last fall with the K-2nd graders:

This was our first project. I had the kids trace hands onto construction paper and then crumpled up butcher paper for the tree branch. It was simple but a good "get to know you" project.

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To tie in with harvest and natural themes: This was natural vegetable dyes from veggies and fruits that we blended and added water. It got kinda messy, but the kids thought it was cool. We did experimental painting on paper. The thrust of the project was the technique and not the final result.

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I had the kids bring in fall leaves, and other natural things and we made collages. A bit too much glue gun and elmers misshaps for the younger kids though;-)

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We used apples to print the frames and did a painting of an apple tree for the center. This was my sample. I guess I was too busy or had too much paint on my hands to snap the kid's work!

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A kid-favorite. Plain old wooden spoons from the craft store jazzed up with lots of odds and ends to make scare crows. This was pretty glue-gun intenzive, but fun.