Remembrance Day painting - Art Project

In Canada we honor Remembrance Day on Nov. 11th. The poppy is the national symbol we use in recognition of the poem "In Flander's Fields" written by John McCrae.

At school we incorporate the poppy into our Art projects. This is a Poppy watercolor painting project that I have done with Grades 1 and 2.

Materials Required:

watercolor paper or heavy sketch paper, tempera paint in green, blue and red, paintbrush, painter's masking tape, scissors,

glue stick, Black marker, red paper (optional)

Tape down your paper on an artboard or piece of cardboard. I always like to tape a painting project as it leaves a nice clean mat for presentation.

Using a pencil mark off horizon. In this project we used rolling hills.

Using the painter's masking tape (low tack masking tape) we cut pieces in half and create crosses. You can help cut the tape for the kids or let them give it a go. I find that some get quite frustrated cutting the tape while others enjoy doing it themselves. I asked the kids to mask off at least 3 crosses. They can do more as long as it was an odd number (3,5,7...). Odd numbers just look better visually.

Press down all the tape edges to make sure your tape will resist the paint.

Start painting. We started with the sky. We wet the paper with plain water to the horizon line and then added our paint starting at the top. This is called a graded wash and mimics the sky in real life. It will be darker at the top and will get lighter as it approaches the horizon.

Using the green paint paint in the rolling hills. paint right over the tape.

We mixed a little brown with our green to get a darker shade of green and to add some depth to our hills.

If you want some clouds in your sky you can lift off some color while it's still wet with a kleenex to form some realistic looking clouds.

To further add some texture to your painting you can sprinkle on some salt when the paint is just about dry, right before it loses its shine.

Let dry. Don't remove the salt until it is completely dry or it will smear.

While you are waiting for your painting to dry work on your poppies. You can paint some paper red while you have your paints out or you can use some red construction paper.

Cut out some poppy shapes and then using your black marker put in the centers. You need quite a few poppies if you want drifts of flowers.

When your painting has dried rub off the salt. I usually hold it over the sink to do this step. Now the magic....remove the tape to reveal the white crosses.

Using a glue stick, attach the poppies to your painting.

This is the painting my son completed last year. The kids were amazed when they took off the tape and the white crosses appeared.

I will be posting more Remembrance Day projects so check back.

see you next time

gail