Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Winter Birch Trees

This one is so simple--just strips of masking tape and then dark blue watercolor with some salt sprinkled over it. After it dries you take off the tape, paint on the moon with white paint and use watered down blue watercolor to put shadows and lines on the trees.

Here's the original idea at Art Projects for Kids. I like hers much better...almost enough to re-do mine! (My salt did something very different so I didn't add the white snow dots.)

15 comments:

  1. Hey Tam, I like this a lot! In fact, I really like yours better than the original. Whatever the salt did, it's pretty cool! This is an awesome blog! I often feel the same way about art projects. Great idea!

    (Emily G.)

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  2. The original one is great, but I also actually like yours better. Very cool!

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  3. Absolutely stunning!! I LOVE it!!! Just like beautiful aspen trees. Aaahhhh. So calming!

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  4. yours looks like frost...very cool

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  5. I love this project, and tried it, but my salt didn't do much at all. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Does it matter if I use sea salt or not? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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    1. Hi Lauren--I'm glad you did this one! It's one of my favorites. I don't think the kind of salt matters. What does make a big difference is the kind of paper and maybe the watercolor paint and how wet it is. Just look at it as a fun way to experiment with the medium. I know mine turned out totally different than the example I was following.

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  6. This is gorgeous! I too like yours with the crystaline shapes better than the original. We've been experimenting all afternoon with different scenes and colors. If you don't mind, may I post your pic on my blog and link back to this great idea?

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  7. how is it that the tape doesn't stick to the paper????

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    1. Well, mine actually did stick quite a bit! You just can't see the roughed up paper in this photo. There are less tacky masking tapes out there, but I just used what I had on hand. If what you have tears ups your paper too much you can go out and ask at the store for the least tacky masking tape they have.

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    1. I used watercolor paper. There are different qualities, and mine was probably the cheapest "student grade" paper.

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  10. use painters tape or drafting tape

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  11. To remove the tape easily use a hair dryer to heat it up first, before peeling it off. This usually works for me.

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  12. stick the masking tape to your clothes first, it will remove some of the stickiness.......

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