Snowman Landscapes

The following lesson is a compilation lesson of two or three lessons I found at Art Projects for Kids. It is a good way to explore several key art concepts including: foreground, middle ground, and background, objects that are farther away appearing smaller and darker, shadow, tinting and shading, color value, and drawing offset poses.

You will need:
paper(white or colored)
pencils
eraser
black sharpie marker
crayons or chalk pastels.


















When adding color to the picture, have the kids keep in mind:

1. Shadows on snow tend to look blue
2. Objects appear darker or more faded the farther away they are.
3. Decide if the light source is coming from the right or left and add shading to the opposite side. Round the shading on the snowman.
4. Use more than one color green for the trees and make the trees farther away a darker green with less detail in the leaves.

This is a fun project to do on darker colored paper so that you can add the white, but it is fun to start with white paper too. Try it both ways and compare the differences! If kids are using darker colored paper the they should color heavier with white crayon or pastel for the snow closest to them and for the snowman. Using a lighter values of white in the middle and background will give the picture more depth.
The sample at the top of this post was done on white paper and colored with crayon. The following example was done on blue construction paper and colored with chalk pastel.