Northern Lights

Occasionally here in Calgary we can see the Northern lights.

This is the second project I'm working on with Kindergarten.

I found this great youtube video for this technique from wecreate art lessons.




I changed it a bit by adding some extra elements in the foreground to complete the composition.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- black construction paper
- chalk pastels
- posterboard or heavy paper for stencil
- kleenex
- watercolour paper, we used 90lb student grade
- blue and purple disk tempera
- plastic wrap
- textured wallpaper
- green and black acrylic paint
- a piece of sponge
- glue
- animal silhoutette cutouts, optional, you can create your own animals

PROCEDURE:

Cut a strip of watercolour paper the same width as your black construction paper.

Paint with purple and blue disk tempera.

While the paint is still wet lay a piece of plastic wrap on top.

You want to smoosh it so that there are wrinkles in it.  This creates the ice like texture.  If yours is not working it might be too dry.  Re wet with the water and try again.

Leave plastic wrap in place while the paper dries.

I want my trees to also have some texture so we used textured wallpaper from the hardware store.  You could also pass some paper thru a crimper or embossing folder (cuttlebug).

Paint with green acrylic or liquid tempera. We are using acrylic as tempera doesn't stick too the wallpaper.

We then sponged on some black paint. I asked the students to not sponge too much so we could see both colours.

Watch the video to get the technique down.
I made quite a few stencils.  If you cut your poster board or heavy paper in wide strips and then cut your wavy lines you get 2 stencils.

Make sure your stencil is as long or longer than your background paper.

Apply your chalk pastel along the stencil, we just followed the line.

I asked the kids to choose bright colours.

Use the kleenex and wipe upwards.

I asked the kids to swap stencils for each new line.


Continue all the way up the black construction paper.

When the watercolour paper is dry remove the plastic wrap.

Cut a curvy line from one side to the other.  This will be the snow and ice in our foreground.

Glue into place.

When your textured paper is dry turn it over and draw some triangles on the back in different sizes.

Cut out.

Glue into place.

For the kinders I pre cut some animal silhouettes from the cricut for them.

If I had more time, (another session) we would have drawn our own animals and added them to our nightscape.


That's it.

Gail