Winter Rain Watercolor Resist

Am I the only one who is ready for this Winter to be over? Spring Break is right around the corner and we still have freezing temperatures here!! This week we have been looking at the ugly, freezing, dark skies and rain. We wanted to turn it into something beautiful!

Begin with a white crayon and draw the horizon line.

there should be a big emphasis on drawing OVALS instead of circles. Students figured out that you can see the white crayon BETTER when the paper in on their stool UNDER the table! 

So I let them draw on their stools! Can you see the white crayon in the picture?

 Some students added a rainbow, lightning bolt or other details

Then I swiped the ENTIRE paper with a wet rag to begin the wet on wet watercolor

I used Sargent Liquid Watercolor Magic for this. I use it ALOT because of the vibrant colors. We used turquoise, Blue, and black

Ovals should be very small at the top of the horizon, but gradually get larger as they go down the page. Use a straight edge for the rain drops. The must TOUCH each puddle

First, paint some large blue "blobs" on your paper. 

Then paint around the blue with black and watch it blend with the blue and the wet paper!!

I have some siblings at my school working on a special project and they painted the background with the rain idea and it turned out great!

Here is a link to the kind of watercolors I use for EVERYTHING! There are different sizes if you want a smaller set. You can put them in muffin tins or ice cube trays on the tables. You can see the link " liquid watercolors" on the sidebar to see many other projects I have used these with

Rain!!

Well it FINALLY RAINED in Houston!!! I freaked out when I saw these crazy awesome clouds yesterday! It has inspired lots of rain projects for the next few weeks. Fourth and Fifth are working on some amazing paintings right now that I can’t wait to post next week. So I am thinking of ideas for our next project!  Here is my example using a picture of yours truly! I am really enjoying the photo/paintings and the kids are LOVING it!

Take photo and print. Use liquid watercolors and a straw

Turn the paper every time you want the drips to change direction. The tiny straws work better for this

Rain Puddle Prints!!

We are having a serious drought in Houston right now! Yesterday my room smelled like a BBQ pit all day from the smoke from brush fires north of the city burning tens of thousands of acres of land, houses, and everything in its path. There is a strict water ban rule that we can only water our lawns on certain days. The heat has caused lots of pipes to burst due to the dry ground and water is wasting out on the streets and making huge puddles. This is where this idea came into my head!

I played Milli Vanilli “Blame it on the Rain” while they worked!!! LOL

First cut the paper in half and cut one side into a large puddle!

On the other half, draw a city or neighborhood using lots of colors with crayola or watercolor markers filling the entire page (no white paper showing! )

Spray the puddle with water

Place the city on top lining up the straight part of the puddle with the BOTTOM OF THE BUILDINGS

This is the fold for the box…hot dog style first, then fold in “two doors" then lift the middle and glue the side flaps underneath to make the box

Take photos of students holding umbrella. One of my classes got creative and looked up to the sky and held their hand up like they were catching raindrops, and jumped and pretended to splash. I printed each student in black and white, and then they cut them self out with a tab on the bottom to fold back and glue onto their artwork.

students traced over the original drawing to make it clear again when it dried. Then they added sidewalks, ripples around the feet, street lights, and colored the umbrella when finished!

I will post more results when finished!