Farewell to Autumn

This is the second art lesson that I did with my students. It was a farewell to Autumn as the weather was so cold in the last couple of weeks. To begin the lesson, we talked about warm colours and then discussed the colours we see in Autumn and what type of weather we experience. One of the students asked about dead pine trees so we also had a short discussion about the pine beetle epidemic.

The lesson was done in three parts. After the teaching, students began making their birch trees with masking tape. They cut and ripped stips for trunks and branches. This took one hour. The next day durig math, I pulled out groups of students to paint the background over top of the tape which only took about a minute for each student. Students could use any colour for the background as long as it was a warm colour (yellow, red, orange). The second day, students carefully lifted the tape and then bgan using warm colour pastels to add shading to the image to create more of a textured forest look. Students were told that if the tape tore the paper, that it would be okay because it would provide more of a textured bark look! Students used block watercolour paint and q-tips for the leaves, and used black pencil crayons to etch the bark onto the trees. The students were instructed not to rush any step and to take their time, especially during the taping section.

The lesson was a great success and all students were able to participate and complete it. If you would like to try this art lesson, make sure you use watercolour paper! You can also do this lesson for winter scenes. The trees will be white and you can create round dots from the tape to create falling snow. For the background, use blue to create a beautiful winter's day!