Create Beautiful Fall Leaves with Tissue Paper & Watercolors

Looking for some fun fall crafts to do with your upper elementary students? Kathy Barbro, California art teacher and creator of the site Art Projects for Kids, shares a beautiful fall leaf art project that your students will love experimenting with! They'll look great on your classroom walls too!

Supplies You'll Need
- Fall leaf templates (several shapes and sizes)
- Art tissue paper in assorted fall colors (red, orange, green, brown, yellow)
- White card stock
- Glue stick
- Fine tipped paint pens (metallic colors work best with this theme)
- Watercolor paints

In preparation for the project, create several fall leaf templates from card stock and use these to trace leaf shapes onto assorted colors of art tissue paper. Cut these tissue leaves out and place a pile in the center of each workstation. NOTE: Barbro recommends cutting several layers of tissue at a time to prevent tearing, etc. At their workstations, provide each student with a piece of white card stock and invite them to create a fun fall print using a glue stick to cover the paper in adhesive then encouraging them to place the art tissue paper leaves "collage style" onto the paper. Once dry, provide your students with metallic fine tipped paint pens, invite them to use gold or bronze to outline and add vein detailing to their tissue paper leaves.

Making sure the paint has dried, provide your students with watercolor paints and paint brushes. Invite them to fill in the background using the watercolor paints. Barbro suggests using a vibrant blue to compliment the fall hues, but you can let your students be the judge! The best part about this project (besides being able to double as brilliant classroom decorations for fall), students get to experiment with several different types of media, textures, and graphic art tools!

Art Projects for Kids: Tissue Paper + Watercolor Fall Leaves