From Plein Air Drawing to Plasticine Landscape Bas-Reliefs - Voila!

I am super excited about this project that my first graders just completed. They started out by experiencing plein air drawing on our campus, and then turned their favorite drawing into a plasticine landscape bas-relief.

So, first things first, I took my classes outside to draw what they saw. We went to a lovely area on campus where there is a stream with a bridge, lots of plants and flowers, rocks, fish, lizards, and dragonflies. The children had a blast being in the sunshine and fresh air, and drew what they saw. They finished their drawings with colored pencils (if they had the time). 

The next time I saw them I showed them how to warm up the plasticine by mushing it around with their hands, and mix colors to get the colors they wanted to use. They used plasticine to cover the whole background on their piece of illustration board, cut the same size as the drawings they had made (about 5x7"), by spreading a little bit at a time on the board.

This part took the most time, as it was a little challenging for them to cover the whole board, but it was necessary so that they wouldn't leave any white showing. 

Once the backgrounds were finished, I showed them how to roll and press shapes to make the plants, trees, flowers, bugs, etc that they had drawn in their pictures. They pressed these on as they made them.

Here are some examples of the artworks next to their original drawings:

And here are many of the finished works - I love how these turned out and the children really enjoyed the process of making these and plein air drawing!

If you like the idea of using plasticine, I recently posted about another plasticine project for kindergarten that focused on the Mona Lisa. Check it out!