Jake's Journey in Art: Watercolor Wet on Wet techniques for Homeschoolers
Kids Creative Chaos building Self-Esteem one art lesson at a time.
Lesson: Choose one of the seascapes and one watercolor technique you've learned.
It was time for our next art lesson. Jake moaned and complained as usual, until I reminded him this week's lessons involved painting. "Yay! I like to paint. I never got to paint in art class." Say what you say? Catch up here. Art is about the journey, not the end result.
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| Jake's seascape is on the left, Mayhem is on the right. She's added some embellishments. |
Did you notice his attention to detail? This is not a child who should despise art. Thankfully, we are making amazing progress.
Now, what Jake really meant to say was- I love it when I'm allowed to make a mess. He chose the sailboat scene and the wet on wet technique. Which is exactly as it sounds, paint water over your entire paper, dip your brush in water and the color, and let it
We also did the salt painting technique and sprinkled salt on the wet sand area. When it dries it looks like real sand.
We first traced over the image to get a feel for it and then we lightly drew it in pencil on our watercolor paper. When painting with watercolors it is important to use the right paper. Copy paper will deteriorate with too much water. The fibers in the watercolor paper are designed to soak up the excess. Still, we laid out three layers of newspaper and had a roll of paper towels ready and waiting. Inevitably, someone always spills the water.
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| Our art table, okay, it is our dining room table. We never use it for that! |
I am pleased to announce this assignment was our turn around lesson. In fact, his feelings about art have changed so much in a recent lesson on mask making he said, "Mommy, it is really awesome that I have a teacher who knows so much about art. You can teach me so many cool things!" (Insert tears here.)
I am quite skilled in the art of mask making. My highschool, art teacher, Mrs. Conway did a lesson on mask's with handmade paper. I made 3 or 4 different projects, entered them into an art contest and won some sort of an award.
Oh my, I wish I could tell you what it was but a lot of time has passed since then. After, I took a tiny scholarship to college and studied theatre design, art, and architecture. I've used the skills I learned in those classes to make many a mask for many a child in an after-school program, made some great mardi-gras costumes, and designed many theatrical props and sets. We'll post mask making 101 next week.
Hooray! Someone finally took notice. My college journey was not a waste after all :-)
Okay, the real point is that Jake took notice. Chuckle-chuckle and all it took was some fancy paper curling around a pencil and a cool, paper snake. Mom's have mad skills, don't they. I'm gearing up to ask Jake to draw a new picture of how he feels about Mommy's art class-eh. Maybe I'll just take a photo of his expression.
Things are looking up!
