Kids Art: Painter's Tape Tree

Here's another fun project I did with my after school art class.  For the month of February we did a study on trees and this was my kids very favorite project....

Interesting enough it was also the lesson that they had the hardest time understanding the concept, at least at the beginning (mostly the younger ones)....The Tape is used as a "resist" to keep the water color off or away from the paper

So here is the lesson plan....

Like the tree of hearts we started out discussing the shapes of trees...

How the are larger at the base of the trunk and get smaller at the top and that the branches do the same...they are larger where they are connected to the tree and get smaller as the grow outwards.

( a tough thing to do when your tearing tape to make a branch)

anyway...

We looked at how at the end of a branch you can often see the Y shaped.

(The top two trees are good examples of this) 

I then gave them a piece of watercolor paper and some tape...showing them how to tear the tape to make the tree...(I did a step by step example for them in the front of the class)...

Some of the kids needed a little help getting started and even along the way....

but they did an awesome job!!!

We started with the trunk and the large branches (I suggested 3 large branches) and then used the left over tape for the smaller ones.

The next step is to paint the whole piece of paper (including the tree) using watercolors...

I let them choose their colors but suggested they do a night time scene with a moon or maybe a sunset...

For the moon I asked them to put it in the branches (so that when the tape comes off, it looks like the moon is behind the tree)...NICE!

My plan was to take the tape off after the paper was dry but the kids couldn't wait....so as long as there wasn't "puddles" still sitting on the paper we took it off without a hitch....

Some of the kids did have a problem with the paint running under their trees.

(Possibly the tape wasn't pressed down hard enough or they used to much water)

My easy fix was wait till next week and then paint the tree.  :)

(You've gotta LOVE the MOON on this one)

Well that's it...Go ahead and give it a try it was sooo fun!!!

I will be linking up to many of the parties on my side bar...check them out!!!

and as always...

Have a great week!!

Denise