Scarecrow Silhouette

A few weeks ago I was at the cabin and I attended the Annual Scarecrow Festival.

The was some amazing artwork by the students of Windermere Elementary School.

I was quite taken by the work of Mrs. Stankovski's Grade 6 class.

They were nice enough to let me feature this project on the blog for you.

Many thanks Grade 6!


Now I have a canvas version and a paper version.


MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- primed canvas or heavy painting paper for the background (substrate)
- acrylic (canvas) or disk tempera (paper) paint in blue, yellow, brown and orange
- drywall medium (canvas)
- Popsicle sticks (canvas)
- scraps of cardboard (paper)
- black paper or scarecrow clip art
- glue
- scissors

PROCEDURE:

CANVAS VERSION:

Before painting tape off the horizon line.  This gives students a visual of where to stop painting and we want a nice straight horizon.

Using blue paint and a little white paint in your sky.  Skies tend to be darkest at the zenith (top) and as the come down to the horizon get a bit lighter.
Don't forget to wrap your colour around the sides and top.

Put some drywall medium on a paper plate.  Mix in a little yellow and brown to colour the drywall.

Using a Popsicle stick spread the drywall on the bottom of the canvas.

Let the drywall set up for a few minutes.

Using the edge of the Popsicle stick make lines in the drywall to give texture to your wheat.

Set aside to dry.

When dry add a little paint to highlight the texture.  I used yellow, brown and some orange.  Use the paint to wrap this colour around the sides and the bottom.



Set aside to dry.

Time to add our scarecrow.

I hold the black paper up to the canvas and measure how big I want it to be.  Using a white pencil crayon or china marker I mark this.  Draw a line down the center and one horizontal about 1 inch from my top line. Draw out your scarecrow and then cut it out, include a bit of the pole at the bottom.

Glue the scarecrow in place.  Put the glue on the side where you made your sketch.

You can add a crow with paper, cut a bird shape, glue in place and use sharpie to add legs and beak.

I also used the sharpie to add a few crows in the sky.  You can also just use clip art like the Grade 6 class did.

Another variation would be to draw the scarecrow in colour instead of a silhouette.

PAPER VERSION:

Tape  the edges of the paper for a nice white frame.

Draw your horizon line in pencil and paint in the sky using blue disk tempera.

Let dry for a few minutes.

Paint in the wheat using yellow and brown.

Set aside to dry.

Make your scarecrow as described in the canvas version and glue to paper.

Add sharpie crows.

As a last step to add some texture to your wheat use the edge of a piece of corrugated cardboard dipped in liquid tempera (or acrylic) and stamp on some wheat lines.  I used yellow, orange and brown.

When paint has dried remove tape.

That's it.  I hope you give this project a try.

See you next time.

Gail