This picture looks best with just white crayon lines (no pencil) so my lesson plan uses mostly tracing of cut-out shapes instead of drawing them.1. Each student needs to draw three trees on a smaller sheet of scrap construction paper and cut them out. They may use a small piece of double-stick tape to mount the three trees on a piece of watercolor paper. (Please note that the diagram to the right uses a gray paper only so that the lines may show.) The edges of the trees may go off the page, if necessary. A ground line is drawn with the white crayon below the trees.
2. Using the white crayon again, trace around the edges of the three trees, pressing firmly to make a thick line. A moon may be added to the sky, along with lots of dots for snow, and a yellow star (in yellow crayon) above the middle tree. The crayon lines may be hard to see at this point, so the students have to work carefully to not miss any steps.
3. I used watercolor that comes in tubes as the white will not be found on your average school watercolor tray. Each student needs just a bit of white and blue, and some water so they may mix a tinted paint color. After removing the two outside cut-out trees, the tinted blue may be painted over those trees, and the sky, and around the moon. At this point the white lines become apparent so that the last paint step is easier to do. Let the tinted paint dry.
4. A bit of straight blue paint is mixed with water and then painted around the trees to fill in the sky. The moon and middle tree and ground remain white. The star could be deleted to just make a non-religious winter landscape painting.
