Colorful Leafless Trees!

My DragonWing Arts students recently completed these paintings of trees.  We began with this simple method: 

First, draw a land line, dividing ground and sky.  

Second, draw a trunk that extends from land line to top of paper.  

Third, add branches coming from the trunk, extending to the edges of the paper.  More smaller branches could be added coming from these branches.   

Details could be added as desired.  Some of the girls decided they should have branches that were shaped like hearts.  And of course they wanted to add swings, too!  I left these decisions up to them.  

When the drawings were done, painting began.  The kids each selected two colors to use to paint their skies, mixing as desired.  

In the pic on the right below, you can see the the student making use of an 'ugly sponge' when mixing colors.  We use these for keeping paintbrushes clean with minimal water.  The excess paint is wiped off the brush onto the sponge, and the brush can then be dipped into the other color the student is using.  When changing to a completely different pair of colors, the brush is first wiped on the ugly sponge, then washed in the water, and then wiped again on the sponge to remove excess moisture.  The paints stay exceptionally clean with this method!

 

Then another two colors were selected to paint the ground, and finally, another two colors were used for the tree itself.  White could be used as desired, and other colors were used for various details. 

 

When the paint was dry, some of the kids chose to use black Sharpies to outline and make their colors 'pop'. 

Originally, the plan was to add a few leaves as desired, cutting them from sheets of colored foam, adding vein lines with Sharpies, and gluing onto the trees or ground.  We ran out of time, so the trees stayed leafless!  I think they look great!