fall into art

The changing seasons has been the theme for many of our warm-up drawings lately, and it's now abundantly clear that kids love the fall. Their imagery shows apples, and pumpkins, bats, cats, and costumes, but most of all, the glee with which our students await the first raking of the leaves and all the antics that surround the leaf pile.
I thought I might share a sneak preview of some of the art projects inspired by the season. I'm especially proud of my third and fourth grade students who are kicking off a five week exploration of printmaking with a leaf printing project. We've learned that prints are images made by pressure, and that artists that make prints are called print makers. We're also learning that printmaking can be very messy--we're really working hard to be careful with the paint. After we print our leaves using warm colors, we'll sponge paint our background using cool colors. We have gold paint for the veins of the leaves and are printing some additional leaves to cut out and run through the paper crimper to give them an eye catching texture before we paste them on. Below is the finished product waiting for matting. Good work third and fourth graders. Look for these on the walls soon. Happy printing.