cedar prints

place based art

Reading The Six Cedar Trees by Margot Sandahl and Celeste Aleck, made us think about cedar trees.

They are all around us, but we hadn't really stopped to look at them with curiosity and creativity. 

As we looked carefully at the cedars in our school yard, we saw their beauty -- and wanted to make some art.


We looked at the colours of the Celeste Aleck's illustrations and the colours of a cedar tree, and chose to use soft blue, grey, browns and greens.

First we tried painting the paper to make the browns look like bark, and the blues and greys look like winter clouds. We all agreed that everything just looked like a puddle. 

We looked at the cedar we had collected to use for printing - and there was our solution. We would paint with cedar branches.  A combination of blue and grey and brown.



When we looked at the cedar beaches we saw that they were slightly different shades of green. Since everyone likes choice, we mixed colours to make light green, yellow green, and dark green, as well as what we called, medium green.



Each artist chose a cedar branch and a shade of green.


We found that we really had to work the paint into the branch with the brayer. We had to make sure the that paint got into all the hidden crevices and corners.





Time to make the print. The artist chose how the painted branch would fit onto their cedar painted background. We put a clean paper on top to keep everything from moving, and then rolled with the brayer on the paper. 

The kids were delighted with the reveal!


Just beautiful!



And the forest ...



Books to extend - deepen the learning/experience

We Live Here 
written by Brenda Boreham and Terri Mack
illustrated by Bill Helin

A beautifully illustrated book that  highlights the cedar and important animals in the Pacific Northwest. It supports the new BC Aboriginal Learning Standards in Science and Social Studies. 


The Trees Grin Beside Me
written by Michelle Macdonald
illustrated by Leah Davis


A child's curious, questioning mind leads her on an inspiring journey in nature. By comparing herself to the majestic trees around her, the young girl begins to learn more about herself and discover the unexpected teachings that trees have to offer. (product description)



            

1 comment

  1. Wow! Those cedar prints are very beautiful. And the books look lovely.

    ReplyDelete

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