ACORN ART STUDIO: Studio Inspirations : FALL

It's an exciting time at Acorn Art Studio!

Getting our brand new studio ready for students and thinking about FALL ART PROJECTS.
I always enjoy working on Autumn projects with young artists. The evocative sights, smells and changes of Fall are really exciting for children! Kids love expressing their experience of the season and our changing environment through art.

The rich, vibrant and intense colours of Fall are the perfect opportunity to explore and create secondary and tertiary colours.
I love using chalk pastels with kids not only because of the beautiful results, but also because they allow kids to blend colours and effectively 'paint' with their fingers.

Here an artist creates a Leaf Poster using oil pastel to outline and chalk pastel to fill in.
Chalk pastels let us blend different shades of colour together.

Sometimes artists like to use brushes, sponges or other tools to blend chalk.

This artist drew with pen and india ink and filled with pastel.

The veins in a leaf are a lot like the branches of a tree.

Leaves come in many shapes.

Beautiful group leaf collage.

Drawing trees is super tricky!

I found a great step-by-step tutorial
'Teaching Kids How To Draw From Life: How To Draw A Tree'
This how-to recommends using CHARCOAL which I find kids really like to use.
Charcoal is a squeaky, smudgy and interesting medium with a mysterious shadowy effect. You can erase charcoal also! The lesson recommends using a kneaded eraser to get into small corners and areas.
And they introduce a drawing fundamental called BLOCKING which is drawing simple shapes that make up a more complicated shape.