K and 1st Spring Watercolors!

I found the inspiration for these lovely spring watercolor paintings on Art Projects for Kids. It's a terrific exercise in simple landscape drawing for Kinders and 1st graders, and the frame around the edges of the drawing really helps students use all of their space rather than drawing tiny flowers in the middle of their paper. So this works as an excellent introduction to composition, as well. I decided to use watercolor paper and liquid watercolors as my youngest artists needed a new paint medium to explore.

Here's what we did:

1. Class 1: I led the first class, the drawing portion, from the white board while drawing along with the children.



• We drew the frame first, and I gave 1st grade students and advanced Ks the option of creating a double frame. Some of them added patterns within their frames. 
• We then drew a horizon line. This could be grass or it could be hills. I left it up to my students.
• We began adding flowers by drawing the blooms first, positioning them toward the top of the frame. Stems and leaves were added next. Whimsical flowers are a favorite of mine in my own art work, and the kids always make comments when they see my screen saver (seen in this post). This was a great opportunity to show them how I use lines and shapes to come up with fun new flowers to draw, and it allowed them to create their own imaginative flowers.
• We then discussed the types of insects and bugs one might see in the spring. (We did this project in early April...I've just been late in posting.) Students added a bug or two or three flying through the air or crawling in the grass or on the leaves of the flowers.
• Students then traced ALL of their pencil lines in Sharpie. This was excellent practice in using fine motor skills. Also, a number of students didn't understand the term "trace," so this was useful for vocabulary, as well.
2. Class 2: Students painted their drawings with liquid watercolors. I really love these SO much more than pan watercolors. My only complaint is how easily the colors get muddy. Kinders aren't careful about cleaning their brushes, and by the time I got to paint with the last class (of 10), the blues and greens were a bit grayed out, and the yellow...well, the yellow simply was no more. I freshened the yellows for my 1st graders once, and we managed to keep them fairly yellow-ish for at least long enough to finish painting.
• Here are some terrific tips on storing and using liquid watercolors from Deep Space Sparkle's blog.

And here are more of our colorful spring watercolor paintings:

Seascapes

I did these pen & ink/watercolor paintings with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students last year. I'll be doing watercolors with all of my students soon, but I realized I never posted these. I think they turned out really nice.

Background: Since we live in Fort Lauderdale, the ocean is a large part of my students' daily lives. Not the "Spring-Break-Girls-Gone-Wild" beach that everyone thinks of when they think Fort Laud or Miami's South Beach, but the calm, quiet, still ocean that those of us who live here year 'round know and love. The water is clear and blue, the sunrises are amazing, and the evening breeze is one of the most revitalizing and calming sensations you'll ever experience. This is the ocean my students and I discussed when preparing for this lesson.

Process: Three 40 min. classes
1. Discuss foreground, middle ground, and background. Students followed along with me to begin the drawing, beginning with large palm-like fronds in the foreground. We then discussed the horizon line, and how placement of elements in relation to the horizon line changes the perception of perspective. Students could choose their own elements to add to the middle ground (water) and background (sky).

2. Nib pen instruction and inking the drawing. There were a number of ink splatters as students became comfortable with the nib pens and a few spills, as well. Next time I'll use deeper ink wells (I just used condiment cups) and have a pen rest available (students kept wanting to put the pens in the cups when they weren't using them, causing the wells to tip...this only happened maybe 4 times, but that's 4 times mess too many...ugh.) We talked about line variation, and students practiced on a test sheet before beginning to ink their drawing.

3. Paint with watercolor. We tested wet-on-wet for the water, let that dry for a few minutes, then used wet-on-dry or dry-on-dry for the rest.

I really love the results, and using the nib pens made the students feel like real artists (they are!).

IF: Capable

I missed last week's IF topic due to an insanely busy work week. Grading, planning, painting with EVERY class...delightful, but exhausting. (The grading wasn't delightful.) Sometimes I feel a bit like these acrobatic chickens of mine. Let's hope I'm as capable as they are.

The Warren hen is a unique breed capable of daring feats of balance and agility.

IF: Popularity

This is my first post for Illustration Friday's weekly challenge, and since I'm jumping in late in the week, I'm turning to a not-new-but-not-too-old illustration for this week's "Popularity" theme.
This drawing reminds me of my sister, who has always been quite the hit with critters large and small.

"Some days she would spend entire afternoons conversing with the fishes..."

Even MORE Underwater Watercolors!

Kindergarten drew warm-colored fish (at least that was the plan) in crayon and then painted a cool-colored watercolor wash over their entire paper. Paper size is 6"x9". Great experience in watercolor techniques for these young artists!

Alex - Kindergarten

Samantha - Kindergarten

Tylah - Kindergarten

Yoandri - Kindergarten

More Underwater Scenes: Watercolor Resist (K-2)

The student work below was painted on 90# watercolor paper  (as opposed to 140# paper used on the other works on the lesson plan). Quality does make a difference, but these colorful underwater landscapes are still beautiful and successful, and the young artists who created them are rightfully so proud of their work!
(Salt yielded little or no results on the thinner paper, so was omitted from these works.)