Sunday, October 24, 2010

Autumn Leaf Banners

Our first graders poured into the art room wearing their smocks, discovering a piece of large white paper covering their tables. I was almost knocked over with desperate, "What are we making today's!?".

So I had the kids gather round one of the tables and I showed them the 'magic' crayons(crayon cakes I made with autumn colors). As I was talking, I started rubbing the 'magic' crayon on the paper...stopped suddenly and proclaimed, "How did this happen? Look everyone!!!" A few of them noticed and shouted out, "a leaf!"

After I demonstrated the texture rubbing, I used liquid watercolors to paint over the leaves. We talked about how to create contrast by using dark watercolors over the lighter colored leaves and vice versa.







The kiddos were so thrilled as they found different kinds of leaves under the paper. I loved seeing each table working together and sharing in the joy and discovery! And the results were just so amazingly beautiful!
















It was hard not to take these amazing banners home with me- they are just so stunning!



3 comments:

Phyl said...

I love the "magic" aspect of this, with the hidden leaves. Very cool.

jordan said...

I think mine banner was the best.

therese english perdue said...

hehe... you might need to work on your handwriting- but good work! :)