The Magic of the Season: Warm & Cool Leaf Paintings

My second graders learned about warm and cool color schemes by painting leaves in watercolor.

First students bought in leaves that they found outside and we learned how to identify them using “Talking Leaves- How to Identify American Leaves”.

We discussed what it means to be a confident artist as we traced both real leaves (and leaf stencils that I made from real leaves) in an ultra fine point sharpie. No pencils were used in the making of this project.

Students drew their leaves to look like they overlapped and went off the page.

I taught my students about watercolor and the importance of letting the water do the work.

To get the great tie dye effect students first paint a leaf with clean water  and then dot in the warm colors with their brush. They are always so surprised by the way the color moves. We later do the same thing for the background, only in cool colors, and then we add an extra fun texture using course salt.

My favorite part of this project is how excited my students are about what they have made. 

It is easy for everyone to be successful.