Tree of Life

🌳 Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Paint a Striped Background Start by painting thick, horizontal stripes all the way down your white paper using your watercolors. You can use rainbow colors or any color pattern you like! Tip: Wash your brush between colors so they stay bright.

WAIT! Set your paper aside and let the background dry completely. If you draw on wet paper, the marker will bleed!

Step 2: Draw Your Swirly Tree Outline Once the paper is completely dry, take your black marker. Draw the trunk of the tree right in the middle, starting from the bottom. Instead of regular straight branches, draw branches that curl, loop, and swirl at the ends—just like Klimt did! Make sure the branches and trunk are thick enough to paint inside of later.

Step 3: Fill in the Tree Using your black paint, carefully fill in the trunk and all the swirly branches you just outlined.

WAIT AGAIN! Set your masterpiece aside one more time to let the black paint completely dry.

Step 4: Add the Golden Details Now for the fun part! Grab your gold metallic pen. Draw fun patterns inside the black tree trunk and branches. You can draw:

• Tiny spirals

• Zig-zag lines

• Little dots

• Triangles

Step 5: Create the "Jewels" While your tree is looking great, it needs some extra shine! Use your scissors to cut small circles out of your gold paper.

• Bonus Detail: If you look closely at the example, some of the gold circles have red triangles inside! You can draw these on the gold circles with a red marker or cut tiny red paper triangles and glue them on.

Step 6: Glue and Display! Use your glue stick to attach the gold circles all over the trunk and branches of your tree. Once the glue is dry, your Gustav Klimt masterpiece is ready to hang on the fridge or the wall!