My Last-Minute Mother’s Day Gift

My father scanned our family photos last year, and I’ve been dying to play around with them ever since. This image had lost a lot of it’s original color, but I had fun handpainting it back in. (Just for the record, I'm the cute one in the chair.)

1. I printed my scanned photo onto watercolor paper, using my Epson Photo 1440 printer. A high-resolution setting is best to get a nice, bright image.
2. I used Prismacolor® Watercolor pencils to add color to the picture edges. Try to match the colors and shapes that are started in the photo. Color can be added inside the picture as well, as I did with the sky and skin tones.
3. Brush the drawing with water to turn it into a painting.

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How to Draw a Peacock

Learning to draw radial symmetry is a CA Visual Arts standard, and is precisely what is called for in drawing this colorful peacock. I’m in love with this kinder’s drawing, in which she chose to use flowers to cap the feathers, instead of ovals.

1. Starting with a horizontal watercolor paper, students draw half a circle at the bottom.

2. A head with neck is added, and a beak and eye.

3. Oval feathers with lines are drawn at 9, 12, and 3 o’clock.

4. More feathers are added at 10, 11, 1 and 2 o’clock.

5. One more feather is added between each already drawn. A black permanent marker is used to trace all the pencil lines.

6. Crayon lines are added to the feathers. When complete, watercolor paint is used to color the peacock body and the background.

Thanks to Katharine, a kinder, who made this amazing peacock. I can’t get over her flower-topped feathers... nothing short of brilliant if you ask me.

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Flower Watercolor Painting

Almost every elementary student can draw a flower, but are they aware of the many different shapes and sizes that exist? For this project, I found a lovely simple flower drawing to copy, originating from Geninne’s Art Blog.

1. I started by drawing a large collection of flowers on my board, based on the artwork from Geninne shown HERE. Students first drew the grass line in pencil and added at least three large flowers spaced evenly across the page. Thet then filled in the spaces with smaller flowers.

2. The students traced their artwork with a black permanent marker.

3. The flowers and grass were painted in with a variety of liquid watercolor paints. Dick Blick Watercolor paints are still my favorite.

4.  The sky was painted blue leaving a white halo around all of the flowers. The halo keeps the colors from running together while brightening up the painting as well.

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Homemade Watercolor Easter Card

Here’s an idea for a pretty Easter Card. Grid formats are fun to play with so feel free to make your own variation of this drawing.

1. I started by folding a piece of 8.5" x 11" watercolor paper in half. To make a quick grid without a lot of measuring, give each student a 1" square of thin cardboard. They are to place the square in each corner, and trace around it as shown in the first diagram.
2. With a ruler, the students then connect the lines to complete the border as shown.
3. Spring and easter details may be added.
4. After the drawing is complete with a pencil, the lines are traced with a black ballpoint pen and the shapes are painted with watercolor. I used Prismacolor watercolor pencils to make my sample.

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Rainbow Painting

This project offers students a chance to practice either wet-on-wet or dry brush watercolor painting. I used both for my sample.
1. I had the students paint without the aid of a pencil outline. They began by painting the grass across the bottom of the sheet.
2. Students who preferred the wet-on-wet rainbow painted the red arc, then orange, yellow, green, blue and purple all just barely overlapping to let colors bleed a bit.

3. Students who opted for the dry brush rainbow painted every other arc, starting with red, a space, then yellow, a space, then blue. When dry, they filled in the spaces with orange and green and added the purple. This spacing allows the colors to dry a bit to avoid bleeding.

4. They finished the sky with a very watery blue.

Note: My favorite paint of the moment are Dick Blick Liquid Watercolors. The colors just are too vibrant for me to pass up.

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Warm and Cool Watercolor Weaving

Nothing makes warm colors look brighter than when they are sitting next to cool colors, and vice versa. This is a colorful way to practice painting and then weaving the two palettes back together.

1. Students started with two rectangles of watercolor paper measuring 8.5" x 11". They were to paint overlapping blotches of warm colors on one (red, yellow, orange) and cool on the other (blue, green, purple). The papers were left to dry.

2. Next class, students were given strips of chipboard that measured 1.375" x 11" to use as a ruler. The cool paper was traced to make at least six 1.375" x 11" strips, and cut completely apart. The warm paper was traced to make at least five stripes measuring 1.375" x 11", and cut leaving just 1/2" intact on one end.

3. The cool strips were woven into the warm paper and pushed closely together. When complete, a black mat with a 7.5" square opening was used to frame the art.

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Watercolor Sheep

I love almost anything that children paint with watercolor. This is a simple watercolor resist, done with sheep imagined on a hillside.
1. The students are to draw, as lightly as they can, three to five ovals (the sheep bodies) in pencil on watercolor paper.
2. A white crayon is used to color heavily inside all the ovals.
3. Give the students a choice of dark crayon colors for their sheep head and feet, such as purple, black or blue. With one color, they need to draw a triangle for the head, two ears to the side and four lines for the feet. These shapes also need to be colored in really well too so that they will show up later. Green crayons may be used to draw just a few grass lines.
4. Finally, I like to have liquid watercolor paint on hand so the students may pick one color and paint over their entire drawing. The crayon will resist the paint and the white bodies will now show up because of the background color - like magic!

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Homemade St. Patrick’s Day Card

I made this card with just a little watercolor paint and a gold paint marker. They are not cheap, but I think so worth the price.
1. I drew many stems and 3-leaf clovers lightly in pencil, filling up the paper as much as possible.
2. Using a small watercolor brush, I painted the outline of each clovers leaf and filled them in with green watercolor paint.
3. I then added more water to the paint and filled in the background with the lighter green, leaving a halo of white around each clover.
4. When the paint dried, I traced the stems and veins with my gold paint marker.

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Valentine Heart Painting

Jim Dine is considered an important contemporary artist who helped to create the Pop Art movement. He used different popular imagery in his art, but hearts seemed to be his favorite.

1. This watercolor resist painting uses rubber cement to help make an ...

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How to Paint a Clown Fish

I’m finding that I really like black Sharpies for tracing when it comes to painting with young students, like kinder and 1st grade. They just have a little trouble sometimes, tracing heavily enough with crayons to cover the pencil lines.

1. Starting with a 9" x 12" sheet of watercolor paper and pencil...

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Art Journaling 132

My afterschool art journaling class continues, and I’m determined to build on my most successful ideas from last year. One was to have the students fill the pages by asking them to draw from edge to edge, and the other was to always involve at least two “layers” of color.

1. Starting with a pencil and a 7" x 10" journal, the students draw two vertical lines as shown.

2. A horizontal line is drawn across the top, one partial, one full length, and another partial line as shown.

3. The students are to write “Hello” and “2011” in the two boxes near the top. The rest of the boxes are for drawing and writing all the things they are looking forward to this new year. My example has some simple seasons for those who may need inspiration, but more personal ideas would be even better. After all the boxes are filled, watercolor paint is used to paint in the shapes and backgrounds.

The next classs will start out with the students using crayons to trace the lines and add extra detail to their page. It adds a bit of punch to the overall look.

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Year End Accordian Book

This can be a quick journal project for kids to record some of their favorite memories from last year, or write hopes and wishes for the new one.

1. Start with large watercolor paper, the 22" x 30" size sheets, and cut into panels of 6" x 24". Fold the...

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Tinted Christmas Tree Painting

This picture looks best with just white crayon lines (no pencil) so my lesson plan calls for tracing 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...

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Nutcracker: Watercolor Painting

I like to have students create one really special piece of art for the holidays, and I remember having good results with this nutcracker drawing last year. My only dilemma is figuring out which media to use. I have some Crayola Mixable Watercolor trays and watercolor paper, so this is a sample of how that media would look. I like the vivid red, the only catch is that a lot needs to be mixed (combining the violet and orange) and I’m not sure if I’ll get a lot of splotchy nutcrackers that way. More tests to come...

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Tissue Paper + Watercolor Fall Leaves

These are cut out tissue paper leaves outlined with a gold marker, and enhanced with just a bit of watercolor paint. Can you tell I just can’t get enough of fall art projects?

1. I used my “How to Draw a Maple Leaf” post to create a paper template, and traced it on the tissue paper (mine was an American Greetings® brand from the drug store). I found it helped to cut out several layers at a time. I cut out various sizes and other simple shapes of leaves to make my collage more interesting.
2. Using a glue stick, I covered large sections of white card stock paper, and layered the leaves on top. I used a purple glue stick and found that any extra glue did dry clear and smooth so don’t worry about using too much glue.
3. I took a gold Sharpie Poster Paint marker and traced around each leaf, and added some veins inside as well. Loose tracing is OK as it adds a casual look to the art.
4. My new favorite watercolor paint is Crayola’s Watercolor Mixing Set. It has a very pretty cyan and magenta color, along with a darker navy. I used a generous amount of cyan paint to fill in the background, and then just a small, watery amount to add more color inside the leaves.

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Watercolor Resist Tree Collage

I learned an interesting paper lesson today. I always thought that only REAL watercolor paper could bring about bright and colorful watercolor painting. My 5th graders just finished an eye-popping collection of fall tree collages, all using regular white card stock paper (for the leaves). The difference was using good liquid watercolor paints, not my usual homemade variety. Good scrapbook paper for the background was also key. Standard issue construction paper just doesn’t have the visual punch.

SESSION ONE: The students started with a letter-size 65 lb. white card stock paper, and placed it over a sheet of plastic needlepoint mesh. They shaded the entire paper with about 3 or four different crayon colors. The students painted over the entire paper with slightly watered-down Dick Blick liquid watercolor paints and let it dry.
SESSION TWO: My scrapbook collection of paper had a variety of blues and greens. After choosing a background blue paper, the students were to cut a wavy strip of green for their grass, and several tree trunks out of black paper. All were glued down in place with a glue stick. After the trees were complete, scraps of the watercolor paper were used to cut and glue small “leaves” that were falling down.

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Scarecrow Painting

I found this idea of a watercolor scarecrow over at Artsonia.com. If anyone would like credit for the idea of drawing him in this closely-cropped fashion, please let me know. I love how my students could easily make a large detailed face, but still include faraway fields and trees too.

1. Students began with an 11" x 15" piece of watercolor paper. I wanted them to get set up with the outline of the body and head before they started customizing, but being that I had many kinders (this was an afterschool class) I knew they would tend to make the shapes very small. To compensate, I had students make their own guides. I had each one align an extra 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with the bottom of the watercolor paper, and use the top as a guide to draw the horizontal arm line.
2. To make the head, I had cut and folded 5" squares of newsprint into quarters. A cutting line on one side showed them where to cut to turn the square into a 5" circle. This paper circle was placed and traced on top of the arm line, near the right side of the paper.
3. The students drew the arm opening on the left, making sure the body would be centered under the scarecrow head. The rest of the drawing details were added and traced with a dark crayon.
4. I told my students they could color in small shapes in their picture with crayon and the big shapes with watercolor.
Note: I had great results with the project, I think due to the fact that the students were set up first with drawing the large body shapes. It is also the third time now that I have used my new Dick Blick Liquid Watercolor set, and I absolutely love the results. SO colorful and such a nice palette to work with. I’m a convert now and know what is going on my next teacher “Wish List”.

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Fall Tree Painting

The basic concept behind perspective is learning that the further away objects are, the smaller they appear. This painting idea comes from one of the Usborne art books, all of which I am very fond of.
1. The students need a set of watercolor paints and good brushes (including small thin ones for detail work). They can start by painting an off-center tree, with trunks and branches. Remind them that trees tend to make forks and split off again and again as they grow up.
2. Colored leaves in varying sizes are painted next. Some may be left on the tree, some floating away or even off the page, and a few extra large ones. Some details may be added with the brown paint used for the tree.
3. If you have time, let the tree and leaves dry before proceeding. The grass may be painted next, taking care to go around the leaves.
4. Finally, a sky fills in the background.

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Watercolor Crayon Resist Leaf

This is so simple but really makes a beautiful image. There's a texture rubbing involved, which is a good trick for young students to learn.
1. I had some donated corregated cardboard that came on a long roll. I think you can purchase this at any moving company, you just need to be sure to get the kind that has the open bumps on one side. Cut the cardboard into rectangles that are at least as large as your drawing paper.
2. I started the students with blank drawing paper, about 9" x 12", and large cardboard leaf templates. To add more educational value, you could have many different leaf shapes. For example: maple, ginko, birch and oak all have interesting shapes. Show the students how to trace them onto the paper, and then add some veins on the inside. Hand out dark crayons and ask the students to trace all of the leaf lines, pressing hard to cover the pencil.
3. For the rubbing, the students put the corregated cardboard under their paper (bumpy side up) and rub inside their leaf with the side of a peeled crayon. Encourage the use of warm colors, just like most fall leaves.
4. Pass out warm watercolors (red, yellow, orange) which may be painted over all of the inside leaf, including the crayon rubbing. Pass out cool watercolors (blue, green and purple) for the students to paint in the entire background as they please.

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Geometric Landscape

Would you like to make sure your students know how to mix a color, in this case green? Then give them one of Crayola’s Watercolor Mixing Sets (which basically only has shades of primary colors) and tell them their job is to figure out how. I asked my students to not only make green, but at least three different shades of green for a simple but colorful abstract landscape.

1. To begin the drawing, I set up a lot of limitations just to keep students from getting hung up on drawing flowers or animals or even a sun. They were to draw at least three triangles trees, with simple trunks, and a wavy ground line.
2. When the pencil drawing was complete, they had the option of tracing their trees and coloring their trunks with brown or black crayons.
3. Next, the fun part, making green. Once the students figured out that the cyan + yellow made a pretty turquoise green, some realized that yellow + the dark blue included in the tray made a nice mossy green. From there, proportions of color could change, or white could be added to make a tint of a color. I encouraged students to leave the ground white, but it was optional. They sky could be painted any color ( I hate to make too many rules).
4. As a followup, small white paper circles made with a hole punch were glued on top to make a sprinkle of snow.
I plan to use this art for our holiday fundraiser, as it makes nice seasonal art that all may enjoy.

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