A google of ‘abstract tree art’ came up with this beautiful find.

I have two year 7 classes that run each semester.  I was set on turning these inspiration images into a unit of work to teach some colour theory –  warm and cool colour schemes. I also wanted to recreate the mixed-media oil pastel and ink process as we hadn’t used these mediums yet.  But for some reason one of my classes always ends up with less time than the other (excursions, house sports, public holidays all the interruptions!). Both classes started the project off the same way by ruling up a grid and sketching our tree and then it dawned on me just how little time one class would have to finish with the fiddly messy oil pastels and painting. So we went down the colour pencil route instead – much less mess and more achievable in a shorter time frame.

The results were both beautiful! One project completed with oil pastel, ink and gold metallic. And the other involved colour pencil rendering, ink, fine liner and collage. Both projects explored warm and cool colour schemes and required the students to follow quite a complex art making process with multiple mediums.

We called this project ‘The Tree of Life’, just like the painting by Gustav Klimt. Throughout this unit we analysed the art elements of colour, line and shape and the art principle balance.

Option 1: Project Photos of Colour Pencil Task

Creating outline and Colouring:

Draw a large circle in the center of A4 page (130gsm) with a protractor. Then draw a tree with each branch touching the edge of the circle. Create a light 3x3cm grid over the drawing. Begin to render each square with warm or cool colours.

Ink and Fine Liner:

Students first used sepia ink to colour their original tree. Then we traced another tree to colour again with ink and applied fine liner focusing on line.

Collage:

Students drew and coloured extra boxes on a separate page. For those who missed some lessons I photocopied their original artwork for them to use in their collage. We used double sided tape and pre-cut (I did these before the lesson) foam core to fix the collage pieces to the original artwork.

Completed Tree of Life – Colour Pencil

Option 1: Project Photos of Oil Pastel Task

Creating outline and Painting the Tree:

Draw a large circle in the center of A4 page (130gsm) with a compass. Then draw a tree with each branch touching the edge of the circle. Create a light 3x3cm grid over the drawing. sing black acrylic paint and a fine brush paint the tree and branches.

Colouring with Oil Pastel:

Begin to colour each box with warm or cool oil pastels. We used a separate piece of A4 paper to place on the boarder of each square to achieve a straight edge. Wash your hands as you go!

Painting the background:

Use sepia ink to create a wash over the entire artwork. The ink will resist against the oil pastel, so wipe additional ink by patting dry with paper towel. This step will ‘dull’ the intensity of the oil pastel colours.

Adding gold details:

Finish off your artwork by using metallic gold paint to add swirls in the sky and dots around the perimeter of the tree.

Complete Oil Pastel Tree of Life Artwork: