Contour Leaves- Today's Nature Study

I have been excited to try this idea over at Art Projects for Kids for weeks. If you haven't been to this blog before, it is a must see. Kathy is an art educator and has a super blog detailing some fun projects. And hey, while copying the links for this post , I found I'm in her favorites bar. That. Is. Cool.

Ok on with the results of our fall contour leaves project! Thanks for another fun project Kathy!

A word on materials- the project calls for pencil, black felt tip pen, and colored pencils. I pulled out the Prismacolors for this one. I'm in love! I tried some color blending and had a great time. Very therapeutic. You should try it some time!

Step 1: trace the pattern for the leaves onto a piece of paper. I used the document linked from Kathy's site and printed one. The kids shared it and I did the tracing for the 3 and 6 yr olds.
Step 2: trace the leaf outline with a black felt tip pen- in our case a Crayola marker. We added the veins so if they aren't super accurate forgive us!Step 3: Use colored pencils to color in the leaves. I encouraged the kids to try blending colors. We used more than one color in the leaf and use the Prismacolor blending pencil to smooth out the transition in color. Very. Cool.

Step 4: Draw contour lines around the leaves one at a time. As they go, the students will have to decide which leaf will be out front and have continuous lines. This one was a bit tougher for the younger kids, but I think did ok for a start. R8 did a nice job. She has such an artistic flare!

I-6 gives it a shot. He grew tired and finished his in two sittings.

J3 had an enjoyable time coloring his leaves and he did an impressive job following directions and adding his contour lines. I just love that he followed the instructions and did his best. For inquiring minds, yes I let him use the Prismas too under supervision of course. After all, raw talent needs superior art products too. Yes?

R8's finished product- she did two more besides

I did my own along with them so they'd have a model to look at and I'm so glad I did. I made one more eventually as well.

J3 holds up his project

We finally got around to finishing our oak tree study as a family. We pulled out the nature journals and talked all about oaks. I did my entry too- here's a partial look. I took my second contour drawing and glued it on the next page.

Now we finally have a nice fall display. The one with the blue leaf belongs to E10.

Next week we are going to try another leaf drawing from Art Projects for Kids. This one will be done with oil pastels.