Painting the seasons

We had our first try with our new watercolour crayons. A friend had told me about a craft that they did and I wanted to try something similar but with our new supplies.

1) First the kids practiced drawing trees in their sketchbook. We talked out our imaginations and how we can access our imaginations to create art.

2) Using watercolour paint the kids practiced watering down the paint. For some reason this is a huge challenge for kids. They always use very dark, saturated colours and find it difficult to lighten/soften them. This was our first focus. Once they had them watered to my satisfaction, I allowed them to paint on their tree. With the lightened brown it was also easier to correct mistakes. Watercolours aren't very forgiving. They painted a single tree on four pieces of paper.



3) We then talked about the seasons and how the tree would change. We talked about how we could show these changes with our paints. We started with the winter scene first and allowed the white of the paper to be the snow. Rubber cement can also be used to keep the paper white. Just brush on the rubber cement on the areas that you want to keep white. When your painting is done and dry just rub off the rubber cement.

4) We drew in our horizon line and then coloured in our sky with the crayons. The kids loved adding the water to their colouring and manipulating the paint on their paper.


5) The most exciting part of this artistic process was the picture of Fall. Using the crayons they created leaves in a variety of colours. Then they took their paintbrush and dabbed the colours with water to soften them and blended them together. They learned to have a light touch and to proceed slowly. They quickly learned that if they spread out the water and the colour that they would eventually become murky.


Mason (age 6)

Mickey (age 4)