Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas Classes- folk art trees, nativities & nutcrackers

The Christmas break didn't allow many week days free before Christmas (and maybe since I'm selfish because didn't want to give up my Saturdays) I decided to only do a home school group this Christmas and three willing participants made their way out to my humble abode :)

Over the 3 days we not only had a huge winter storm come through blanketing the countryside with snow & ice for nearly a week but we created some beautiful paintings.

The first day (which got delayed due to icy roads) we made Folk Art Christmas Trees. I came across artist Jenny Murphey on Pinterest and adored her Christmas trees. Check out her website here 
Before class started I used painters tape to make the shape of a Christmas tree and when the girls came I had them paint the background black. After that they drew lines for ribbon and circles (or bullseyes as they thought they looked like) for ornaments. 

Using paint pens they colored their ornaments then used various green acrylics to paint their trees. 

Lastly, once the tree dried we used a black sharpie to go back over our lines. Sadly this is the only picture I have of their incredible trees :'(



The second day (which was not delayed although there was still plenty of snow on the ground) we tapped in to the true meaning of Christmas and made nativity silhouettes.




 I love how these turned out :)


The last day we got nutty and made funky nutcrackers inspired by Alisa Burke's blog post here. We began by checking out some real nutcrackers a friend of mine let me borrow, who happen to play "Clara" in a nutcracker production a few years ago, much to my dismay though I could not convince her to put her ballerina gear and give us a live rendition....sigh.

We sketched the nutcrackers facial features, hat design & clothes. Then drew on our preprimed 2x4. 
 

Either using paint pen or paint whichever they were more comfortable with, they gave their nutty new friend some color.


Lastly, I glued on their choice of pompom or feather.


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