Students use two steps to create this project. Use professional artist's paper dyes or any stain-creating substance such as ink, coffee, tea, berry juice or gelatin powder. Create solutions of the dye substance and water in plastic dish tubs. Provide students with watercolor paper or card stock to dip in the solutions. After dipping, allow the dyed paper to dry. Have students dip natural dry or silk leaves in black or brown ink or paint, then print the leaf impression onto the dried, dyed paper. Allow the leaf print to dry completely before framing, hanging or transporting.
Create a stained glass-looking fall tree painting using black glue and water colors. Mix black acrylic paint and liquid school glue in a half-and-half solution in the glue bottle. Have students draw a leafless tree form with branches that fills the top half of a piece of sturdy, rectangular paper. Instruct them to create one large, branch-filled tree or several smaller trees. Trees are the only objects in the picture. Students then trace over the drawn tree with the black glue and allow it to dry. Around the dried black glue, students use watercolor paints to create a stained-glass effect. Around the trunk, have students paint with blues and greens to simulate the ground and sky. Between the branches, have students paint mottled sections of fall colors that give the illusion of a tree filled with fall leaves.
Stage a still life arrangement of pumpkins, gourds, baskets, fall flowers and leaves in a place where all students can view it. Provide students with colored artist's tissue paper, sharp scissors and sturdy white paper. Have students sketch a light, pencil outline of the still life objects on the white paper. Students then cut tissue paper shapes to create the objects in the still life. Provide a half-and-half mixture of school glue and water along with paintbrushes. Students glue the tissue paper pieces of the still life onto the white paper by painting the glue mixture on the back of the tissue paper shapes. After gluing all pieces down, students brush a final coat of the glue and water mixture over the entire collage to protect and seal it.
Give each student a large ball of air-dry clay. Judge the size of the clay ball by the size of the bowl you wish students to make. Have students create a leaf-shaped, shallow bowl from the clay using a pinch-pot method. Students press a thumb into the middle of the clay ball, then pinch with fingers to create a larger hole and the sides of the bowl. Once created, have students press dried or silk leaves into the bowl to give it texture. Allow clay to dry completely, then sponge paint fall colored, acrylic paint over the entire bowl. Instruct students that the bowl is for decorative use only.