Scarecrow Painting

I found this idea of a watercolor scarecrow over at Artsonia.com. If anyone would like credit for the idea of drawing him in this closely-cropped fashion, please let me know. I love how my students could easily make a large detailed face, but still include faraway fields and trees too.1. Students began with an 11" x 15" piece of watercolor paper. I wanted them to get set up with the outline of the body and head before they started customizing, but being that I had many kinders, I knew they would tend to make the shapes very small. To compensate, I had students make their own guides. I had each one align an extra 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with the bottom of the watercolor paper, and use the top as a guide to draw the horizontal arm line.
2. To make the head, I had cut and folded 5" squares of newsprint into quarters. A cutting line on one side showed them where to cut to turn the square into a 5" circle. This paper circle was placed and traced on top of the arm line, near the right side of the paper.
3. The students drew the arm opening on the left, making sure the body would be centered under the scarecrow head. The rest of the drawing details were added and traced with a dark crayon.
4. I told my students they could color in small shapes in their picture with crayon and the big shapes with watercolor.