First Grade Scarecrows | Two Ways

Have you ever wanted to experiment with different supplies with the same project just to see what happens? Of course you have!

For a twist on my Watercolor Scarecrow Art Project, I switched out the watercolor background for liquid tempera paint. I knew from past experience that watercolor paper and liquid watercolor is the easier route, but I love how vibrant the farm looks with tempera paint as well.

VERSION #1: TEMPERA PAINT BACKGROUND

What You’ll Need:

– 12″ x 18″ white sulphite paper

– Liquid tempera paints (blue, green, yellow, orange and black)

– Medium and small paintbrushes

– Black oil pastel for drawing

Before students came in, I mixed up a selection of bright tempera paints.

After looking at pictures of fields and farmlands, children drew lines that become the fields, clouds and sun with a black oil pastel. Nothing fancy, just a wavy horizon line or two across the page and some vertical lines for the fields is all that you need.

Then students painted the resulting shapes with tempera paint; yellow for the sun, browns, oranges and greens for the field and blue for the sky.

It’s not necessary to paint the clouds. Let the white of the paper shine through.

Now comes the hard part; outlining with a small brush in black paint.

This is not easy for little hands, so don’t expect perfection. In fact, I love the wonky lines that the children create much better than straights, perfect ones.

An alternate to the black paint is to use a thick, black oil pastel. This is less messy, but does require extra time for the paint to dry fully before outlining.

MAKING THE SCARECROW

What You’ll Need: 

– Printed and cut templates on cardstock

– Scissors & glue

– Black permanent marker

– Popsicle stick & tape

– An assortment of paper; scrap, painted, scrapbook or a mixture of all three

– Raffia or yellow paper (optional)

Set aside the background and begin making the scarecrow. We’ve included templates that you can print on cardstock to make the process a bit simpler below.

Download your templates by adding your name and email!

You can also choose to have students free-draw the clothing on craft paper, but be prepared for tiny little shirts and pants from first graders. 

After the students cut out the head, pants and a shirt, they glued the pieces together.

Then they added patches, small buttons, raffia or yellow paper for straw to complete the scarecrow. 

To save a bit of time, tape the scarecrow to the Popsicle stick, then glue to the background paper.

VERSION #2: WATERCOLOR PAPER BACKGROUND

What You’ll Need: 

– 12” x 18” watercolor paper

– Palettes of liquid watercolor

– Oil pastels

You can also complete a beautiful background using liquid watercolor paint, which I mentioned before being a bit less messy than liquid tempera. I prefer to use liquid watercolors, rather than pan watercolor because the colors turn out so bright and vibrant. 

If you aren’t convinced, check out this post in liquid watercolor paints. 

First, students used oil pastels to draw the background; yellow for the sun, then green or brown for the fields and finish off with fluffy, white colored-in clouds.

Then they painted. The oil pastel creates the perfect barrier that deters colors from mixing in-between shapes and when students paint over the white clouds, it will seem like magic as they appear from beneath the paint.

Add the scarecrow as directed above to finish off this watercolor beauty.

Look at these adorable scarecrows below!