The Puzzle Tree

Jordan O (Yr 4)

This week we have created Puzzle Tree pictures using oil pastel. Thanks to La Galerie de Christelle for this great idea, which I found on Pinterest :)

We started by drawing a simple tree on our page, ensuring that the trunk reached from the bottom of the page to the top, and that the branches stretched right out to the edges of the page.

We flipped the page over and sketched a simple hilly landscape  (no more than 3 hills, and a bright sun in the sky) which we colored heavily with oil pastel. As we colored each shape, we ensured that there were two thick layers, using colors close together on the color wheel, and with the lightest color on the bottom. We then used the sgraffito technique to engrave patterns into the top layer so that the lighter color below showed through.

The kids decided for themselves whether to color their skies - some applied the same engraving technique to their suns, others decided to leave their sky white.

The final step is the tricky one! We flipped our pages back over and cut out our tree shapes. This left the negative space of the background between the branches, which we reassembled as a 'puzzle' onto black paper. It was important to cut out all our shapes and assemble them one by one before we started gluing pieces down - It's very easy to get confused, but a bit easier if you remember to find the corner pieces first!

To complete this picture we learned about sgraffitto engraving into oil pastel, positive and negative space, and the importance of following directions!

Our Puzzle Trees are really very effective. Some of our trees became very abstract in the puzzling process, but somehow still retained their 'tree-ness' quality. They each turned out very differently, and uniquely splendid in their own way.... Well done!