Leaf Paintings in Tints and Shades

 

This lesson was inspired by the leaf paintings featured here at Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School.

My grade 4 students created our version of these paintings by drawing a large outline of a leaf on their page using pencil. They then divided the shape using one central line and then used lines to create smaller areas of shape. 

Students were then asked to choose one colour paint of their choice as well as black and white and then painted the divided areas using as many tints and shades of their chosen colour as they could mix. Once painted they used a thick black marker to retrace all their lines before cutting out their leaf and gluing to black card. I love the way these turned out, they remind me of stained glass windows.

Easy Leaf Monoprints

 This is a simple mono-printing technique I learned in my childhood which I suddenly recalled this year and decided to try with my grade 2 students.

Students folded a piece of paper in half and thickly coloured one half of the page with various brightly coloured oil pastels. Once they had filled the page, I gave them a black crayon and asked them to colour over their coloured page as thickly as they could, aiming to have no colour showing through. This is the same technique one would use for scratch art. It seems to need to be black crayon and not oil pastel to work properly. 

We then folded the page in half again so that the coloured page was on the left side, inside.

I then had students make detailed observational line drawings from leaves we had previously collected from the school grounds. Once they had sketched the leaves lightly, students needed to ensure they had retraced all their lines in pencil, pressing hard so as to ensure the lines were being printed through on the inside of their page. 

Once they opened their page they now had their original drawing on the outside and a positive/negative mono-print of their drawings on the inside.

This is one of those fun projects where the kids can't predict the outcome and it seems like magic. It can also work with any drawing.

Leaf Drawings

 

 These drawings are the result of my grade one classes introduction to observational drawing. After a short demonstration, students were asked to make slow and accurate drawings of leaves of various shapes and sizes. They used fine point markers so they were unable to erase any errors, they instead moved to another part of their page and started again. They showed incredible focus and fine motor skills for 6 year olds. I am so proud of them, I can't stop looking at these drawings!