Winter Landscapes

This gift card was my inspiration for our co-op art projects last week. I liked its look and thought it would make a good lesson using horizon lines and creating depth. It took me several week of thought to figure out how I wanted to present and execute it in class. Of course, I also learned things DURING class about the best way to do it! This is the second time I have found inspiration in gift cards. See the Earthy Collage project from last year here or find it under the "art" Label on the sidebar.

The younger class (4/5th) left their white trees in the lollypop shape to get the look. They also added paper punch snowflakes. This was a quicker method and still gave a nice composition.

The older class (6th) cut out their white tree branches, then traced circles and colored them in with white colors.

Here is how we did it.

You need:

Blue and white paper of the same sizes (we used 11 x 18)

Glue sticks

black and white colors

scissors

hole punch

First we all got sketch paper and practiced drawing trees. Reference pictures can be handy here. I did one directed drawing with them, then had them flip the page and do one on their own. When we all were comfortable with the trees, we went on to the regular paper

Each child got a blue paper and a white paper. I had prepped the white papers by tracing three circles toward the top on each of them before class. First they cut a narrow, long wavy line horizontally across the bottom of the white paper to make the "snow" horizion line for the blue paper. Then they sketched their trees below and in each circle, trying to bring the branches out to the edge of the circle for a good shape. Remind them that the closer to the trunk a branch is, the wider it should be.

Next, they cut out the trees. They cut up each side of the trunk and then around the circle to make a "lollypop" shape. At this point they can cut out the branches or leave the white trees in this shape. If your class plans to do the white circle coloring over the cut out brances of the trees, save the outside of the white paper to use as a stencil after the trees are glued onto the blue paper.

Be sure and turn the cut-out white trees over to glue them down so the pencil lines do not show. After students have the white trees done, thay can take a black color and draw three smaller trees spaced across the blue paper. It helps to position the snow horizion line at the bottom of the page (do not glue it yet) so they can figure out how far down to draw the black trunks. Remind them not to get the black colors on the snow. When the black trees are done, help students to arrange the white trees on paper in a pleasing composition. Glue down. Glue snow horizion line on last. Add snow "flakes" if desired.