16 of My Favorite Watercolor Lessons!

Hi, friends! 

Since I recently shared a tips and tricks video on all things watercolor paint, I thought I'd dive in with my very favorite watercolor lessons of all time. I have 16 of 'em just for you but before we get to those...I thought I'd share some of my all things watercolor.

Let's start with PAPER! If you'd like to check out the blog post on paper, visit here.

Now let's talk supplies! You can find my list of supplies right here.

For ALL of my watercolorin' tips and tricks, check out this video here!

If one of the things your students struggle with is BRUSH CONTROL (or just not abusing those poor paintbrushes!), might I recommend my Paintbrush Ballerina method? You can kick things off with my book The Paintbrush Ballerina and then dive into my free downloads!

First, I recommend using these (totally free) downloads. Slide them into sheet protectors and allow students to practice their brush control with just water. I'll show you what I mean and share the downloads here.

Once complete, students can 'graduate' to painting with watercolor paint in these fancy frames...and even earn a Paintbrush Pro certificate! Those downloads are here.

Now let's get to those lessons!

In my Tips and Tricks video, I share that one of my favorite things to do is create customized watercolor trays. I like to have a warm and a cool tray on hand as that allows my students to explore with watercolor paint without the messy/muddy paintings. Warm and cool colors are analogous which means that they not only sit next to each other on the color wheel but...they also look great when mixed! 

For this second grade lesson, students had to decide which they wanted to use: warm or cool. Then we traced a circle and created this sunset or sunrise scene.

Once dry, we created these silhouettes with India ink. You can find the lesson details here!

And see how we wrapped up the lesson here. Aren't they so pretty?!

Here's an oldie from over 10 years ago but LOOOOK how pretty! This is a similar process to painting the background with an exploration of Ming vases. Details here.

This one might be my favorite!

Another example of my students using the customized watercolor trays is this kindergarten rainbow lesson!

If you'd like to see my introducing watercolor paint to my kindergarten friends, visit here!

Now this lesson is usually one I do with tempera cakes BUT you could also do it with watercolor paint. It's the perfect rainbow follow up lesson for kindergarten (or any grade!). Lesson here!

So precious, I would frame it!

For another rainbow lesson, check this one out!

Now I never did a blog post on what we did with those rainbows but...I do have the evidence! I did this lesson EVERY YEAR (which is wild I never blogged about it) and they always made me so happy. We created the sun and cloud images and added them later. We used blue chalk to add color to the sky before we added the cloud and the sun.

Exploring abstract painting is always fun...especially when you can tie it in with the combo of crayons or oil pastels and watercolor. They always look so fab together! This could also be a super fun LINE review. Which seems like the perfect time to reread my book Larry the Line! Find this lesson here.

What do you do with the abstract paintings? Well, you could just admire their beauty OR...use them for weaving! Details on first grade paper weaving here!

Now I don't think I ever created a lesson on this one (my googling turned up empty handed) but what we did with the weavings was create these fun houses! To do this, we painted with tempera on a large sheet of paper a sky and the ground. Once dry, we cut out a house silhouette and glued it over our weavings. Early finishers had fun learning how to do a little bit of stitching!

Here's a spin on pattern making and resist! My first graders created these and you can find out how here. 

I love this lesson for learning how to do a fun wet-on-wet technique. In the video, I'll walk your artists through the process and they will love the magic! 

Once dry, students can use permanent markers to create floral designs on the watercolor paint. Find the lesson and the free download right here!

One of my VERY favorite things to do is create these texture cards for use with oil pastels and watercolor. I've created several vidoes on how to create these but...it's so easy! Just use tag board and glue to draw some line designs. I used the line ideas I created in Larry the Line.

To create them quickly, I cut a ton of those little cards and laid them all on a table before attacking them with lines drawn by my glue gun. Then my kindergarten friends used oil pastels to create texture rubbings!

From there, they painted over the texture rubbings with watercolor before using ink filled bingo daubers to add an alphabet. This lesson is always a hit! Also...those texture cards will last FOREVER. I made one set and used it for over 10 years! Lesson details here.

This lesson was created for a sub to use and the kids LOVED it! This one comes with a video and a free download. You can find it here!

The download is actually here! I just love this lesson so much!

Check out this fun one! This could be the next step in the house lesson  where your artists create little pop up houses. The most fun was in created the patterned background. Lesson details here.

Okay, so I didn't realize I had a thing for house lessons! The little road was my favorite part of this project. Find the lesson details and video here.

I love a lesson that ties in a couple of concepts. This one explores LINE (featuring Larry!) as well as the wet-on-wet watercolor technique. You can find the full lesson here.

I love a fun and funky art project and this one, which is also a shape review, is just that. You can find the video lesson here. 

Another shape lesson is this one! Both of these lessons are based on my book Alfred the Ape Knows his Shapes!