Age Recommendation: Any!
Length of Activity: 15-25min
Supplies Needed: Canvas, Palette Knife (a Ruler would also work), Paintbrush, Acrylic Paint, Pencil, and Sponge
Due to the fact that everyone is currently being quaratined, now is a great time to pick up a new hobby such as painting! Using a palette knife allows you to create a unique work of art, gives you the freedom to work more abstractly, and allows you to not be as concerned with the precision of your work and just have fun. Follow these steps to create a basic yet impressive painting!
Step 1: Gather your Materials
Make sure you gather all your materials before you get started to prevent a situation in which you’re scrambling to find the correct tool for the next step!
Step 2: Draw the Skeleton of Your Trees and Prep the Paint
Take your pencil and sketch out what is essentially a skeleton of a tree. Add a line to represent the ground your trees stand on, which will later be used as the line between the tree and its reflection. Add small dollops of paint in the order of a rainbow outlining the trees you sketched earlier. Once you’ve laid that paint out, paint the background with a coat of light blue, covering both the space above and below the previously sketched line.
Step 3: Spread the Paint with the Palette Knife and Sponge
Once the background has been laid out, grab your palette knife (or ruler) and spread the dollops of paint out. Feel free to have fun with this section, mush the paint around quickly and form vague mounds before they dry! Once you’ve pushed the paint around to your liking, grab your sponge and dab the paint around to make it look more like a tree.
Step 4: Create a Reflection and Tree Trunks
Be careful not to let your paint dry before completing this step! Take your paintbrush and bring it down to the base of your trees and drag the paint down in streaks to create the reflection of the trees. Lastly, take your palette knife (or ruler) and use the edge on the side to place some black lines to create the tree trunks. To finish it off, use the same black to paint a line to further emphasize the distinction between tree and reflection. Add some white streaks to define the details.
