Art Lesson Plan for Fall Leaf Art Projects

Use Autumn Leaves to Teach the Art Elements of Line and Shape

© Renee Carver

Sep 26, 2008

Autumn leaves from different trees offer a variety of shapes for children to observe and experiment with using. Try the following elementary art projects to give children experience with talking about and working with different kinds of lines, outlines, and shapes (including positive and negative images).

Objectives

• Students will use descriptive words to talk about different kinds of lines and shapes.
• Students will create art using different leaf outlines and shapes.
• Students will use art materials to explore positive and negative images.

Preparation

Collect leaves on nature walks or other outings and press them dry and flat before using.

Project #1: Trace Leaf Edges

1. Collect leaves with different kinds of edges.
2. Have children place each leaf on a large, unlined white index card and trace around its edges with a black pen, copying precisely each bend and curve.
3. Talk about how you can use words to describe how lines move through space. Note that lines can be categorized as vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.
4. Examine the leaf outlines and have children brainstorm words to describe the line that makes up each outline, such as smooth, zigzag, pointed, jagged, scalloped, curvy, and so on.
5. Have children write labels on the cards describing the lines and then categorize and group the cards by their edges. Make dividers and file the cards in a class reference box of leaf edges.
6. Have children use the different kinds of leaf-edge lines as inspiration and fill a blank page with line designs.

Project #2: Outline Leaf Shapes

1. Collect leaves of different shapes.
2. Ask children to trace and cut out card stock versions of each leaf.
3. Discuss how a line creates the outline of a shape.
4. Have children experiment with making abstract designs by tracing their card stock leaf templates on paper with markers, pencils, or crayons. They might overlap their tracings or keep them from touching. They might trace with a solid line or experiment with using dotted or dashed lines.
5. Once children are tired of making abstract designs, have them combine the traced outlines of different leaf templates to make representational pictures. You might provide them with copies of Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert [Harcourt, Inc., 2005], Fall Leaves Fall! by Zoe Hall [Scholastic Press, 2000], and Look What I Did with a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi [Walker and Company, 1993] so they can see examples of pictures made from real leaves.
6. Once children have built up a repertoire of tracing techniques and ideas, supply them with butcher paper or a clean blackboard or sidewalk. Have them use markers (butcher paper) or chalk (blackboard/sidewalk) and their leaf templates to create a fall-inspired design composed from leaf outlines.

Project #3: Experiment with Positive and Negative Leaf Images

1. Have children trace around a leaf template on one white card and then color in the outline to create a dark figure on a white background.
2. Next, have children use the leaf template as a reverse stencil, placing it on another white card and shading over the edges with a colored pencil to create a negative image of the leaf's shape (a white figure on a dark background).
3. Discuss how the leaf shape is the figure and the space around it is the ground. Note that sometimes the shape/figure is positive while the ground is negative (shaded figure on an uncolored background), and sometimes the shape/figure is negative while the ground is positive (uncolored figure on a shaded background).
4. Provide children with pieces of felt, construction paper, and/or tissue paper in fall colors (reds, yellows, oranges, browns, etc.).
5. Have children trace their leaf templates on the materials and cut out the shapes, keeping both the shape (positive representation) and the background from which it was cut (negative representation).
6. Invite children to experiment with positive and negative images by gluing positive and negative representations of leaf shapes onto felt or paper.

After this lesson, children's artistic vocabularies will contain new words for describing lines and shapes, and they will have new methods for creating and using lines and shapes in future artworks. Next, why not have them try some art projects that explore texture or use a variety of fall materials?

Autumn Leaf Shape

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