Winter Reflection Collage

Every now and then I resurrect a reflection lesson (see here) with a different theme. Last year it was with pumpkins in a puddle (here) for fall, this year it is with snowmen in the forest with the addition of collaged ice skaters on the pond.

We start by folding the paper in half (lengthwise) and use landscape setting. I use regular copy paper from the printer rather than heavier drawing paper. Kids draw their forest scene with snowmen using Crayola Watercolor markers (they seem to work the best for me). You can find some great Google images of forests, mountains, etc. to show your class for reference. Caution students to draw their trees and snowmen sitting right on the fold line. This is REALLY important!!



Then spray or brush water on the white part of the paper and carefully fold it up onto the colored part. Press lightly and unfold to see the reflection on the pond.



You could stop right there and call it a day. Because these are on copier paper, they dry REALLY quickly.

Or, if you have the time, have student draw and color ice skaters that they can cut out and glue onto the ice. We used drawing paper (90# I think) for this step. (We do quick gesture sketches on scratch paper to get the positions to show movement.) This is a good opportunity to mention creating the illusion of depth  with overlapping and size of objects!



In the example below, the student took time to go back after the paper was dry and before gluing the skaters to add extra touches of color to the forest using oil pastels.
She also spattered white paint for that snowy touch.

This is a pretty quick, fun project for that wintery feeling!!

P.S. - Blogger's new feature of allowing you drag and drop pictures right onto your post is VERY cool. Thank you Blogger!!