North Vancouver School District
the natural place to learnĀ©
Dec 01
Superintendentā€™s Holiday Card Design Project
Contributor: Tracey Chapman, Teacher at Westview Elementary

The grade 3/4 students in Tracey Chapmanā€™s class at Westview Elementary School were asked to provide a submission for this yearā€™s Superintendentā€™s Holiday Card. The students used their creativity and imagination with the two themes they had to work with - Winter Trees and Chickadees in Winter.

The student whose work is chosen for the holiday card design will be selected and announced soon. We wanted to showcase and share with you the artistic talents of all students who participated and thank them for taking part.

Winter Trees
Using Group of Seven artist Frank Johnston and an Arts in Action Toronto art lesson as inspiration, the grade 3 and 4 students were asked to create a winter-themed landscape with evergreen trees in silhouette against a winter sky as their subject matter.
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After viewing several of Johnstonā€™s tree-themed artworks, the students began working with yellow, light green, and dark green chalk pastels to produce a winter sky that could be interpreted as being in either sunset or sunrise.

The technique of blending was demonstrated and the students set to making a soft sky by using a tissue to blend the different chalk pastel rings into one another.

The students quickly learned that the chalk pastels were a medium that needed to be used carefully to avoid unintentionally smudging their work.

Once the sky was complete, the students added the tree silhouettes with black paint, careful to keep the paint brush on an angle to ensure thinner trunks and branches.  

The needles of the trees were produced using a gentle dabbing of the brush in order to achieve a feathered look. To complete the scene, white paint was utilized to produce snow accents on the ground and on the tree branches. The resulting works conjure thoughts of a Canadian forest in winter.

Chickadees in Winter
Using chickadees as a focal point, the grade 3 and 4 students were tasked with creating a winter landscape using both watercolour paint and oil pastels. For inspiration and direction with colour, the class looked at photos of chickadees in winter environments prior to beginning the pieces.
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After some practice at sketching chickadees using scrap paper, the students began to create a background in blue watercolour paint. 

Before sketching out the birds and branches onto the resulting blue and white background, we discussed the concepts of background, foreground and perspective and how the sizing and placement of the birds on the page would influence how the viewer would interpret the scene.

With that in mind, the students sketched out their birds and branches. Oil pastels were then used to add the chickadeeā€™s distinctive markings, fill in the branches and add a burst of brightness with the addition of red berries at the branch ends.

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To complete the scene, the students were asked to add evergreen trees to the background using grey pastels keeping in mind our discussion about perspective and sizing the trees smaller than the branches and birds in the foreground. Snow accents were then added falling from the sky and to the top side of the branches in the foreground. The resulting products evoke a quiet wintertime scene with a little whimsy added by each birdā€™s unique character.

The student artwork will be featured on display outside the Gordon Smith Gallery from December 11th until the New Year.

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