Impressionist Christmas Trees First Grade

Materials: - 12x19 watercolor paper - 9x12 scratch paper - pencils - scissors - paint trays - tempera brushes (small and large) - sponges - tempera paint (gold glitter, brown, light green, dark green, white, yellow) - water

Directions 1.Paint the entire 12x19 piece of paper with gold glitter paint. 2.Paint the bottom brown for the floor. 3.Set aside to dry. 4.Fold the scratch paper in half lengthwise and draw half of a large triangle on the paper, then cut it out. 5.Place the triangle stencil on the painted paper. 6.Sponge the light green paint over the triangle and then follow with the dark green.

Directions Continued 7.Remove the stencil and using the sponge, soften the edges to make the tree look more realistic. 8.With a brush, paint a red circle at the bottom of the tree for a tree skirt. 9.Use brown paint to make a rectangle at the bottom of the tree for the trunk. 10. Use the small paint brush to paint white lights onto the tree (brainstorm with the class what lights can look like on a tree.)

Directions Continued 11. Use the small brush to paint red ornaments on the tree. 12. Use the small brush to paint a yellow star on the top of the tree. 13. Touch up any spots on the background with the gold paint.

Vocabulary: Realistic - expressing an awareness of things as they really are. Impressionism - a style of painting originating and developed in France during the 1870s, characterized by concentration on the immediate visual impression produced by a scene and by the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light. Artists include Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley.