Friday Art Feature - Snowy Birch Trees

I LOVE teaching art!  I love it even more on a Friday morning when you just know the students are exhausted and teaching something new would be an exercise in futility.  ;)

Whenever I post one of our art activities, I inevitably get asked, "How do you have the time to teach art?"  Art is part of our curriculum - which we have to assess.  My students don't have "specials" - I teach almost all their subjects, including art.  And I am so glad that get the opportunity!  :)

Today we took on snowy art trees - and as impressive as they turned out, it was a very easy art project with success for all!

We started our with a piece of plain white computer paper.  With very light pencil marks, we drew in the horizon, a large moon, and some lines for birch trees (students were free to draw as many as they wished).  We talked about perspective - how the trees closer to the bottom of the page would look larger, and the trees closer to the horizon would appear smaller.  

We then used a deep blue oil pastel to shade in the sky area.  From there, we used black and grey pastels to make the markings on the birch trees (a tree we are VERY familiar with up here).  When that was done, we added in the shadows for the trees with the grey pastel, and used the white to make a subtle ring around the moon.

The last step was to add some "snow" (white acrylic paint) by dabbing it over the whole page with the end of a paint brush.  When all was done, I laminated them (on a lower heat so the pastel didn't bleed) and posted them for all to admire.  We finished the main part (the drawing and pastel work) in about 45 minutes (some less) which gave lots of time for the paint to dry so I could get them laminated and posted at the end of the day.

Happy Friday!