As some of you who may know, part of my Limefish Studio life includes teaching art part-time to the most adorable Preschool and Junior Kindergarten students. I have oodles of pictures and lessons from last year, but honestly got a bit too busy to share them here on the blog. So, I’m hoping that if I post each week’s project immediately it will help me stay on top things and spread some creative ideas and beautiful artwork. So here’s one (of hopefully many) art class posts!
FALL LEAF PRINTS
I brought in an assortment of leaves and together we began by inspecting them — talking about the shapes, colors, and details (looking closing at the tiny lines on each leaf). After a brief painting demonstration — which included my secret trick of holding the leaf steady by placing a finger on the stem…. or as I described to the kiddos, “this is how we can keep the leaf from dancing all around our trays while we paint it.” When the demonstration was complete, their reactions to the “magic” was absolutely priceless!
Students were each given their own painting tray, a leaf, and white paper. Each table had several colors of paint (with brushes that were to stay with each paint color — I chose not to have the students rinse their brushes between switching colors because the excess water would have lessened the “print” effect). They painted their leaves, and then slowly placed their white paper on top of the leaf and pressed down (some needed assistance here). Then flipped their paper, pulled back the leaf, and WA-LA!
