How to Make a Snowy Cityscape in 4 Easy Steps

Materials Needed⇒

• 9 x 12 Black construction paper
• charcoal set which includes gray and white charcoals
• white tempera paint
• 9 x 12 white paper for cutting city skyline
• scissors

Easy instructions:

1. Draw a simple city skyline on the white paper.
2. Cut your skyline out of the paper to be used as a stencil-cut only the top line and not each building.
3. Lay it on top of your black construction paper and weigh it down to lay flat with pennies or small rocks.
   With white tempera paint watered down slightly, use a toothbrush splatter technique to make a snowy sky.
   Lift your cut out to reveal a city skyline.
4. Now add details of windows, shadows between buildings and snowy roof tops with several charcoal values ranging from pure white to pure black. You can use a card stock straight edge to keep your lines straight if needed.

Skills used/learned:

• cutting
• drawing (city)
• paint technique- create snow effect with toothbrush and paint
• shading with charcoals

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Eric Carle Art Lesson

An Eric Carle art lesson on texture made perfect sense. What better way to study his art than to cover texture step by step using his books for the picture study!

We’ve covered five texture techniques this week inspired by Eric Carle’s books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Quiet Cricket. Get those specific tutorials below:

1. Color Wash and Splash Textures– Monday
2. Brush & Scratch Textures – Tuesday
3. Insect Textures– Wednesday
4. Blotting Textures– Thursday
5. Project Completion- (You’re Here)

Now it’s time to put them all together! Since you’ve already created each part of the the project (background, insect and sun or moon) all you need for this step is glue. I used mod podge because it’s so easy to use and can be brushed on. You can make your own “brushable” glue by adding water and mixing well.

Children should arrange their items the way they would like and glue them in place! Arranging them first before they glue is a good idea so that adjustments can be made while they are not yet attached! I only glued down the butterfly body and not it’s wings to give it a slight bit of 3D effect.

Wouldn’t this study go well with an insect unit? Have you seen my Free Insect Notebooking Pages?

So, what texture is your favorite? Or what Eric Carle book is your child’s favorite?

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Teaching Texture with Eric Carle:

We’re almost done creating textures inspired by Eric Carle’s books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Quiet Cricket Board Book. Each day this week I’ve written tutorials for:

1. Color Wash and Splash Textures-Monday
2. Brush & Scratch Textures – Tuesday
3. Insect Textures– Wednesday
4. Blotting Textures-(You’re Here)
5. Project Completion- Friday

Texture #3: Blotting Textures

Materials Needed ⇒ Card stock or sturdy white paper, yellow and orange paint, scissors, bubble wrap

Note: You can use anything to create texture by blotting as long as it has some raised parts to it. If you don’t have bubble wrap use something else around the house that would leave an impression. If your child desires let them finger paint the smile in the sun  just like in the book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Picture Study:

For this part of the lesson, look at the sun and moon images in both books and start the discussion by asking:

• What textures do you see?
• What different colors does Mr. Carle use for the sun? moon? Now would be a great time to talk about warm and cool colors.
• How do you think the faces are made? Do you want to make a face in your sun or moon?
• What feeling does a happy sun give to the story?
• How is the texture of the moon in The very Hungry Caterpillar different from the moon in The Very Quiet Cricket?
• How might you make texture similar to the moon in The Very Quiet Cricket?

Let’s Make Sunny Textures

So far we’ve covered the background as well as the insect for our project. We just need one more “Eric Carle style” component. Sun or moon textures! Obviously, if you’re going to do a moon for a night time project, use shades of white, gray and other cool colors such as blue or purple in place of the yellow and orange for the sun in this tutorial. Start with yellow and make some texture brushing both directions.

 Add a second color, again using brush strokes to create texture. Remind the children not to blend. Once you have done that it’s time for the fun part! Using the bubble wrap or another texture maker, dap it into a third shade of color and then blot the texture onto the color -over what you have done so far. This is a third layer of paint for added texture.

The last step is to let dry and cut out the desired size and shape. This is often hard for children (and adults) to estimate size until placed on the background. So, start larger than you think and you can always trim to the right size later. Use remaining portion to cut the suns rays if you’re not making a moon.

Visit tomorrow to see the entire project revealed and how to put it all together!

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