Tape Resist Trees

Making a forest of tape resist trees is fun, quick, and easy.  Sixth graders will take these home for the upcoming art fund raiser.  Students were shown a monochromatic example of birch trees.  They were given the choice of a monochromatic or polychromatic color scheme, and could choose the type of tree they wanted in their art.  Sixth graders started by taping a border around their work.  Next, they added a moon or sun.  To make the orb of the moon, they cut out a paper circle slightly smaller than their moon.  They taped over the circle letting the tape overhang the edges.  The overhanging tape was trimmed about 1/4" larger than the paper.  We chose this method because we wanted the tape to stick to the paper without ripping it when removed.
Next, the trees and branches were taped in.  We used easy-release blue painters tape.
In the next class we painted in the negative space with liquid watercolors.  Students chose either realistic or abstract colors.  Some chose to sprinkle with Kosher salt to get the speckled effect.

We found that the salt took effect quite quickly.  We brushed it away after 10 minutes, and were ready to peel the tape off before the class ended.