Watercolour Masterpieces

I love teaching art! I was never good at art, which I believe actually makes me teach it better. Those who have natural artistic talent can struggle to connect with those who don't. Plus, if I can make something beautiful, so can anyone!

As part of our Extreme Weather topic, I thought we'd have a go at painting some atmospheric cloudy skies. 

I began the lesson in one of my favourite ways: I asked them to do the task with no help. So, I gave out watercolours and asked them to paint me a cloudy sky. When they asked for more information, I just said to paint any cloudy sky however they wanted. On the example below, this is the picture in the top left. 

After that, we experimented with some different techniques I had found online:

1) Blotting (not pictured)
Brush water over the paper, paint different shades of blues, purples or sunset colours onto it, then dab with paper towel.

2) Dripping and dribbling (pictured bottom left)
Wet the paper thoroughly, then use a very wet brush to pick up a lot of paint and drip it onto the paper, then tilt the paper around, allowing the paint to run and bleed. 

3) Negative space (pictured top right)
Using a clean paintbrush, paint water in patches around the paper. Then, using very wet paint, paint your sky colour into the dry space and right up to the wet areas. It will bleed into them, giving an effective smudgy edge to the cloud. 

The children evaluated each technique and experimented with them on scrap paper. They then chose their favourite technique to create a final piece with. For this, we still used only A5 size, but on card. The results really were spectacular! Take a look: