* Colorful Fall Leaves With Oil Pastel On Newspaper

This colorful fall project is fun for ages 3 and up. 

Some parents and teachers may not be comfortable allowing preschoolers

to work with oil pastels, they are messy. 

You can substitute with regular crayons or 

Crayola "Poster" Crayons (for bolder color). 

For this project you will need:

• Leaves to look at and sketch
• Pencil
• Non-Toxic Oil Pastels or Crayola Poster Crayons
• Newspaper
• Coloful Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Glue Stick

Begin by lightly sketching the outline of each leaf with pencil 

on newspaper. Then, color in the leaf with non-toxic oil pastels 

or for younger students (or less mess) use Crayola Poster Crayons. 

Don't say I didn't warn you, oil pastels are beautiful but they are messy. 

Make sure your students push up their sleeves and try not to drag their hands 

through the pastels as they are coloring. 

I like to keep baby wipes near by to clean up messy fingers.

Important Note: 

The little "boogers" that form from the oil pastels need to be shaken into a trash can, 

if they are allowed to travel onto laps, chairs, or the floor they can stain

and create messes on clothing and carpets. 

I love the way the pastels blend and the text showing through 

the newspaper adds interest to the leaves.

When the leaves are all done, 

cut them out and carefully glue them onto 

colored construction paper with a glue stick.

(Note: we laid our leaves face down on an extra sheet of newspaper

 to apply the glue stick to the back of the leaf 

so it wouldn't smudge the clean colored paper!)

The leaves can be left as is, or cut out again with a colorful border 

to hang as a mobile, garland, or other decor. 

What would you do with your colorful fall leaves?

Fondly,

Pink and Green Mama

Easy Colorful Fall Leaf Project With Elmer's Gel Glue and Watercolor

For this project you will need:

• Leaves to study and look at (or print-outs from the internet of leaves)
• Student quality Watercolor Paper
• Pencil
• Elmer's Gel Glue (or Elmer's White School Glue)
• Watercolors (brush, water dish)
• Table Salt (optional) for fancy sprinkle effects

Appropriate for Ages 3- 103

This simple fall art project can be done with a variety of ages.

For preschoolers (ages 3 and up) they can draw the leaves 

with pencil and have help (if needed) outlining the leaves

with the Elmer's (blue) Gel Glue, you could also 

substitute White Elmer's School Glue. 

Students can even try tracing real leaves on their papers.

Don't forget to draw the veins on each leaf, 

notice how their patterns change too!

Older children should be able to lightly sketch their leaves onto the watercolor paper

and outline them with the glue by themselves. 

Allow the glue to dry completely before painting with the watercolors.

After the glue has dried, 

have fun painting the leaves and background areas with a variety 

of beautiful watercolor colors. 

Students can use "realistic" or "natural" earth tone colors

but I always encourage my students to use bright 

and colorful colors, it's more playful and whimsical that way.

The glue will create a natural resist or barrier to the paint

and pop out the outlines and veins on the leaves.

While the paint is still wet, you can add a sprinkle of table salt

or sea salt to the painting to create a sprinkle effect.

Just shake off the excess salt after the painting has dried.

These leaf paintings are a beautiful bit of fall color

for your home or hallway. 

They're also fun to laminate and turn into fall place mats!

Happy Leaf Painting!

Fondly,

Pink and Green Mama,

Fall Fun: Warm and Cool Colors Leaf Study

This fall art lesson was always a big hit with my students

 when I was an elementary art teacher. 

It was a nice way to talk about the different shapes of leaves,

warm colors (red, orange, yellow, gold, tan) 

and cool colors (green, blue, violet, silver, gray),

as well as explore complimentary color combinations. 

We would start with a fall leaf gathering walk.

Then, we'd work on a piece of black construction paper folded into fourths or quarters.

Sketch one leaf in white chalk in each square (rectangle). 

Then, using oil pastels color two leaves with cool colors

and the other two leaves with warm colors. 

This is a good project to practice blending and mixing colors.

Color the background with the opposite color combination, 

so if you have a warm-colored leaf you would color a cool-colored background

and for a cool-colored leaf you would color a warm-colored background.

Here's an example of the leaves in progress, notice how it takes

a while to build up the layers.

Close-up of the intersecting backgrounds. 

Happy Fall Art-Making!

Fondly,

pink and green mama,

* Fall Fun: Making Leaves With Elmer's Glue and Waxed Paper

The girls and I have been having so much fun with 

our homemade rainbow glue.

(you can find directions here)

We decided to see what would happen if we made 

glue "leaves" on waxed paper. 

I always love it when the girls come up with fun projects to experiment with!

First, we drew some leaf shapes with a black permanent marker

on the less waxy side of the waxed paper. 

Then, we flipped the paper over and worked on the waxy side.

Outline each leaf with colored glue, 

then fill it with more colored glue. 

Try not to let the tip of the glue bottle touch or it will smear your project!

The girls and I all worked on this sheet together.

"E" came up with this technique adding 

lots of neat colors, patterns, and shapes 

(kind of like our art studio rug!). 

This rainbow leaf was my favorite.  "E" did a great job on it. 

I think Wassily Kandinsky (or my buddy Meg Duerksen)  would love it too!

After we finished our leaves, the girls asked if they could make other glue shapes.

So they each drew on a new piece of waxed paper. 

"E" made a glue "felt board" play set with: a frog, some grass, 

a worm, flower pot, snail, a monogram "E", and a flower. 

Blurry pictures of her snail and frog in progress.

"C" working on her rainbow "Pteranodon",

she's obsessed with the show "Dinosaur Train" on PBS. 

Not to shabby for a 4-year-old!

We set our glue masterpieces aside to dry in the art studio for a day.

Then, carefully peeled them off the waxed paper. 

The ones that were made with thicker layers of glue did much better.

The thin ones, cracked and broke apart : ( 

Happy Fall Crafting!

Fondly,

pink and green mama, MaryLea

* Pink and Green Mama Crafts: Exploring EVEN More Great Artists Volume 3 eBook

Okay... summer is over and it's time for a new school year.

As promised, here is my latest ebook. The third volume in my 

best-selling and most popular 

Pink and Green Mama Craft series,

Exploring Even More Great Artists - Volume 3.

This 67-page page PDF Formatted

Lesson Plan eBook has

12, brand new, complete Art Lessons

featuring 8 Great Artists

for only $10.00. 

* An Art History Lesson and background information about each featured artist.

* Supply Lists

* Full Color Photos of Actual Student Work

* Detailed Step-by-Step Photo Directions. 

Packed with supply lists for each project, lesson plans,

photos of each completed project, step-by-step instructions,

photos of actual student (classroom) artwork,

and background information/simple biographies about each artist;

this 67-page printable PDF

includes everything you need to create your own 

Exploring Great Artists Unit

at home or in your classroom. 

If you loved my first Exploring Great Artists ebook

and my second Exploring MORE Great Artists ebook,

this is the perfect addition to your collection. 

This lesson pack features projects to explore the work of 

the following great artists:

Pablo Picasso

Henri Matisse

Vincent Van Gogh

Georgia O'Keeffe

Louise Nevelson

Georges Braque

Andy Warhol

Claude Monet

Features actual student work, tested in the classroom.

These art lessons can be done on a one-on-one basis with your own child

or in a large group/classroom setting with several children. 

These lessons are best suited for 5-10 year old children. 

These lessons are a wonderful supplement to a home-schooling curriculum

or to add some art history to your classroom!

You can do several lessons at once, like a camp experience;

but I recommend spreading them out over several days/weeks.

Use this ebook curriculum in whatever way works best for your schedule.

The PDF ebook is designed to be printed out

(I recommend using card stock paper and assembling it in a binder!)

or you can read it directly from your own home or classroom computer screen.

This 67-page Art Lesson eBook

is best suited for elementary aged children (ages 5-11)

This $10.00 Art Lesson Collection includes:

12 Complete Art Lessons

featuring 8 Great Artists. 

To purchase the PDF:

Please click on the Add to Cart button below.

You will be redirected to PayPal, where you can pay by credit card or PayPal.

After your payment is processed you will immediately be redirected to the download site.

Get ready for some artsy fun!

Discount Code:

Discount Code:

These art lesson plans are copyrighted

by MaryLea Harris (Pink and Green Mama LLC)

They are intended for personal or classroom use only,

not for re-sale or reproduction. 

Thank you!

Fondly,

Pink and Green Mama, MaryLea

Liquid Watercolors Spin Art

Nothing fancy today, just a little show and tell 

of one of our favorite crafty toys!

The girls love our spin art machine.

We picked ours up with a coupon at our local craft store

years ago to replace our salad spinner (homemade spin art machine) and we love it. 

It's so easy that the girls can use it on their own,

they just have to let me know they're doing it and work together.

We always lay out some newspaper to work on. 

I keep a box stocked with pre-trimmed squares of paper,

the spin art paint bottles and liquid watercolors. 

Fondly,

pink and green mama,

* Salt and Glue Watercolor Paintings!

I always wanted to try this salt and glue technique from 

MaryAnn Kohl's book, Scribble Art.

When I saw it on Jean's blog, the Artful Parent it was so pretty

I knew we needed to give it a whirl. 

You will need:

 white school glue (we use Elmer's)

salt

liquid watercolors

cardboard scraps or pieces of heavy watercolor paper

brushes, pipettes, or eye droppers to apply the watercolors

Start by "drawing" your picture with glue on a piece of 

stiff watercolor paper or cardboard. 

Use something that can handle the weight because it will be heavy!

When the glue drawing is finished, cover it with a generous amount of salt.

Just like applying glitter, 

tap off the excess and re-use it for another art project (don't eat it!). 

The nifty part is that you don't have to wait for the salt and glue to dry

 before you start painting!

The girls painted their pictures with liquid watercolors.

You tap or touch the salt lightly with the brush and watch the color spread.

Don't drag your brush through the salt and wet paint or it will make a big mess.

I order our liquid watercolors from Discount School Supply. 

The colors will be very bright and vivid while they're wet.

They'll fade a bit as it dries.

Then we tried making a RAINBOW 

with our homemade colored Elmer's glue

(instructions here).

Alternating stripes of colored glue and plain white school glue.

The salty rainbow with wet watercolors...

The next day, after the paint and glue dried.

"E" working on her self portrait profile 

on a scrap of cardboard.

I LOVE all the colors on this one!

Sometimes it's easier to draw/sketch your picture first,

then outline it in glue.

This is "C"s portrait of Arthur (from PBS) on a scrap of 

cardboard from the recycling bin.

Close up of his glasses.

 

Happy Salty Glue Painting Making!

Fondly,

pink and green mama