Painting Fall Trees With Kids

I adore That Artist Woman's blog.

She is a WONDERFUL art teacher

and has so many great ideas

(she's on my sidebar and one of my regular must-reads).

I saw these fall trees this summer

and couldn't wait to do a version

with my own artists in residence.

She used watercolor washes for her beautiful

fall color backgrounds

but we decided to try out

tissue paper collage on ours.

I remember making paintings like this with

my mom and her watercolors when I was a little girl.

First we glued some

(shades of orange) tissue paper

squares to a fuscia sheet of paper.

Then we made a big, wet,

black watercolor puddle

at the bottom of the page.

Then I gave the Frog Princess

a straw from our Inventions Box

(you can also use a ballpoint pen tube)

and told her to blow.

You may need to add a little more

of a puddle to your paint blob

as you go to get the tree going.

You could also do this with very watery

paint (watered down tempera)

I love the black tree silhouette against the bold colors.

Happy Fall Crafting!