Walking Through Woods

We started back with my Art Girls class this week. I wanted to do a winter project and saw a wonderful one here that tied into Robert Frost's classic Woods on a Snowy Evening poem. We liked it so well that we did it again on Monday at our mini-co-op day. Finished Monday projects above: Top, L to R: W., M., Me, James, Linda, Ann.

I cut rectangles from cereal boxes. We taped them down (painter's tape) onto newspaper to make a nice frame.

Black (acrylic) paint for the trees, larger in front and slimmer as they stand farther back. Trees should be tapering smaller as they go to the top of the page. All trees go off the top of page. Uneven numbers, staggered trunk heights and different thickness of trunks give movement and interest to the composition.

 On Monday, we moms painted too. (Friend Linda.)

After painting the trees, white (acrylic) paint is slightly thinned and flicked over pictures with brushes to make "snow." I opened the bottoms of a few boxes, then just propped them over each picture to contain the flicking paint. They were easy to collapse flat and take along to class.

After all the black paint is dry, white is painted at the base of trees to make the ground area. Think of what kind of line the snow is making between the trees. (Note differences in horizon lines in first picture.) You may have to touch up the sides of the trees if over painted. Let dry. Remove the painter's tape carefully and enjoy your woods. We read the poem before starting, and then wrote chosen lines from the poem along the bottom of our pictures when they were done.

During my Art Girls class, we had a second project. Since Valentine's Day is coming up, we did a watercolor resist project. I suggested hearts, but they could draw whatever they wanted with oil pastels. We tried to work a wet wash watercolor to try to get our colors to flow into each other. They did a great job.