Tissue Paper and Watercolor Leaves

We made these leaf compositions with my sixth graders today. The first two pictures were my sample, at two stages, and the last two pictures are the kids' versions. They turned out great!

Here is what we did.

We used watercolor paper, tissue paper, and pencil, pen or marker.

We used leaves and leaf shapes reference sheets to help in cutting our 3-5 tissue paper leaves. They arranged their leaves on their paper and then glued them down with a watered down white glue mix. (About 50/50.) Put a little more glue mix on top of each leaf. Try not to get too wet or tear the paper.

For composition, suggest that the leaves should look like they are moving-some might overlap each other, they should not all be in a line, and a few might go partially off the edge of the paper.

This was a chance to practice watercolor washes and mixing colors on the page. I helped them learn to mix up colorwashes in the Prang watercolor trays. (Use no substitutes! Prang is the best brand.) Then we brushed color onto the background around the leaves. They tried to keep a wet edge at all times and blend two or more colors for the background. We also tried to leave the edges of the leaves untouched by the watercolor painting, to avoid bleeding. Encourage and point out a loose watercolor style.

Some students used markers or black pens to add loose details. This is best done when all is dry.