Falling Leaves Watercolor Painting

Grade 4-6 students made these lovely falling leaves watercolour paintings using liquid watercolours.

I was inspired by THIS post on Pinterest- no source is given.

I cut some manila tagboard in half and students drew a leaf of their choice on it. They could draw one or two. They needed to include a stem and draw the veins on. Once cut out, this was their tracer.

*I encouraged the older students (Grade 6) to draw a more challenging leaf, such as a maple or oak. Grade 4 students mostly drew the simpler leaves.

The they traced it on their thin long sheets of heavy paper. They needed to include some overlapping and create a sense of movement with some diagonal directional lines. 

Once drawn out in pencil, they outlined everything in Sharpie.

Time to bust out the liquid watercolours!

We reviewed warm vs. cool colours. They painted their leaves first using warm fall tones.

The next class, they painted their background using cool colours.