Fall-ing for value painting

Please excuse the lame title. I'm kinda lame sometimes.

Anyway, when my husband proposed last April Fool's Day (that's a doosie of a story for another day), I booked a photographer right away. And right away, she referred me to Pinterest. I've been pinning like a madwoman ever since. And now, who isn't? I found this picture on another teacher's pinboard:

Sadly, it linked back to a Flickr account, which meant no explanation, no plan, nada. Last week, I decided to give it a go with my third graders, figuring out what to do along the way.

We began with 12x18" black paper. I went with black instead of white in order to better hide our initial pencil lines. Every kiddo drew three leaves, all connected, some overlapping. Each leaf was sectioned off with a few veins.

Tracing our pencil lines with bottled glue was... messy. Some kids got it, some kids not so much, but we got 'er done. The biggest issue was finding a good spot for 20+ pieces to dry, as all of my drying racks are slanted, which doesn't bode well for gloppy, drippy glue!

 

Once the glue was dry, we discussed color values. I gave each kiddo a piece of egg carton with white tempera as well as the color of their choice. Everyone mixed their own tints, then shared their cartons with classmates. Each leaf had to be its own color.

We'll be mixing shades next time. So far, so good! Thanks again, Pinterest, you wonderful and cursed black hole of free time.