Falling Leaves

One last leaf project this fall. Students love to paint, and grade 6 students enjoyed blending paint on paper to create backgrounds for "falling leaves" silhouettes.

We looked at photographs of blue skies and sunsets, observing how cool blues dominate daytime skies while warm colors appear at sunset. Using only blue, purple and white or yellow, red and white paint, students blended the colors directly on 12" x 18" white sulphite paper to create their backgrounds. They then drew or traced leaves from nature and cut them out from black construction paper to create the leaf silhouettes. After adding veins and outlining the leaves with metallic markers, they glued them onto their backgrounds. The composition was important, and the artists strived to create the look of the leaves falling through space against their skies. Click on any image to get to the picture gallery.