Let's Talk Watercolor! 12 Watercolor Tips and Tricks!

Watercolor is a staple in the elementary classroom and art room BUT...it can be a bit of a headache. I recently saw on an art teacher's Facebook group a teacher sharing a brand new watercolor tray completely demolished in just one painting session (well, demolished is an exaggeration; all watercolor trays can be cured with a simple rinse at the sink). It reminded me how much I have learned from teaching art after a million years...and all that I learned about teaching watercolor paint to kids. So I put all of the tips and tricks I could think of (I'm sure I missed some!) in a video. I'll list them below but if you wanna just watch then...here ya go!

Tip #1: Ditch those cases! 

I kick off the video sharing super cute vintage watercolor cases and then...I tell you to ditch the case. Trust me! You will save the sanity of dealing with messy watercolor cases. AND it will help the paint to dry between use. 

Tip #2: Remove black, brown and white!

THIS IS A GAME CHANGER!! Trust me on this one. You will send me letters, flowers, hugs and well wishes when you do. 

Tip #3: Customize your paint trays!

I have a rainbow tray, a warm tray and a cool tray. I want to create a flesh mixing tray too. 

Tip #4: Only buy refills!

So a big brand art supplier STOPPED making refills for their watercolor trays. I KNOW. However...my friends at Prang STILL DO! Hooray! You can check out all of my recommended watercolor supplies as well as those refills in my Amazon store! 

Tip #5: Use trays!

They capture the mess and make transport of supplies easy for you and your students. Need a supplier for trays? See my Amazon link...OR...check Dollar Tree's website! I often buy those trays in bulk on their website; I never see them in their stores. 

Tip #6: Try dog dishes!

I did add a link to these in my Amazon store BUT you can find them cheaper at Dollar Tree. These I actually do see in the stores!

Tip #7: Use wake up juice!

This might be the kids' favorite trick. They LOVE Wake Up Juice! They think it's so funny and my older kids love to use it independently. 

Tip #8: Teach proper brush care!

Isn't that the worst?! Seeing your precious paintbrushes ground to bits? Not to mention your paint pans demolished?! Try teaching a couple of my hacks: Ballerina Paintbrush and Pet the Kitten.

Tip #9: Cleaning the brush!

Nothing muddies up a paint set like not cleaning the paintbrush correctly. Get a sponge for this and thank me later!

Tip #10: Explain translucence!

So that kids know the difference between watercolor paint and tempera, you may want to explain the difference between translucence and opaque. 

Tip #11: No waster watercolor!

I'm getting tired of typing so check out the video on how I use every last drop of watercolor paint!

Tip #12: Let the paint dry out!

I share my simple hack for letting paint dry completely between use.

Now, I have chatted about watercolor paint in the past. You can see my video about watercolor here. And if you want to see me teaching watercolor to my students, you can check out this playlist! Or check out the one called A Glimpse Inside on my YouTube channel.  

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Art Teacherin' 101: My Favorite Watercolor Paints!

 One question I get A LOT is about supplies...what supplies are the best to order? It's scary, putting in a supply order! We have such little money we don't want to waste it! You can check out some posts about my favorite art supplies to order here. In this video, I'll even walk you thru some of my favorite things for my art room. These posts are a couple years older and definitely need an update but many of my fave things remain the same. Especially my fave watercolor paints. 

 Only with quality watercolor paints will you get beautiful paintings! That and teaching kids HOW to use watercolor paints correctly. If you lurk this blog, you'll find plenty of posts of me teaching my students how to use their paint the right way to create amazing masterpieces. THIS LESSON (arrow pointing up) will be posted here super soon!

So...instead of typing it all out, I thought I'd create a video to share my favorite paints with you, all available in your favorite art supply catalog. This is NOT a sponsored post...so you know I'm speakin' the truth!

I'm so thankful for companies that continue to make quality art supplies for kids. Our young artists deserve the best!

Here's me explaining how to paint to my small friends. 

What are your fave watercolor paints?

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In the Art Room: Fourth Grade Fauves!

I just wrapped up a super fun and VERY COLORFUL Fauve-inspired self-portrait lesson with my fourth grade kiddos. This lesson included so many things: drawing a cartoon or caricature version of ourselves, using chalk pastel in an unusual way, creating pattern and design with oil pastel for a watercolor resist. It was mixed-media to the max with beautiful results. Here's a quickie lesson I put together just for you and your kiddos:

Lemme just say this: I DO NOT enjoy teaching self-portrait drawing to my older kids. They are so stinkin' hard on them selves that it is painful to watch. We will do a more in depth selfie drawing later this year (if time allows) but for now, this was a fun way to ease in to it. These works of art will be featured in our Artome Art Show and therefore have to be 9" X 12"...I really think this would be a great lesson on a bigger scale as the kids could achieve more detail. 

 Normally, my lesson for fourth grade and Artome is this Romero Britto one. While I love that lesson, it does take forever. Also...I have a group of kiddos this year that would just be frustrated with that lesson. I decided to create a lesson based around their interests (working big and bold!) and their attention span (I know my people, what can I say) and this proved to be it. Each kiddo was super proud and successful. 

 Day One: Each kiddo had a bingo dauber filled with slightly diluted India ink. After doing some quiet sketching for the first five minutes, we gathered and chatted about creating simple selfies on our paper. Because of the large line of the dauber and the small size of the paper, the kids learned quickly that they had to work big and without tiny details. They also were not to use pencil first but to just GO FOR IT. I only had one rule: YOU CAN MAKE AS MANY AS YOU LIKE...but if you start a selfie, even if you think it is a "mess up", you must finish it. Each kid ended up with between 3- 5 to choose from for the next class. Extras will be used in upcoming projects. 

The following art class, we started using chalk and "elephant snot" or liquid starch. I get my Sta-Flo liquid starch from Walmart. The best chalk pastels I have found are made by Faber-Castell. The colors are just so bright!

Day Two: Chalk and starch those bad boys! If they finished one, many kids asked to work on their other drawings. I was totes cool with that!

Day Three: Create a background! Using our Sargent bright oil pastels, we drew patterns all over the background of our selfies. Then we used liquid watercolor over that. Each is just as beautiful as the next! I cannot wait to see these at our art show. Will keep you posted on what the other kiddos are creating!

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In the Art Room: Heather Galler Inspired Bouquets with Second Grade

 As we draw toward the end of the school year (okay, I know I'm early BUT in "art teacher years" a couple of months means time for just a handful of projects until the end!), I am thinking about ART.SHOW. Like, 24/7. And my art show isn't until MAY 15TH! I'm trying my hardest NOT to be my usual procrastinating self. So I've been pulling out grade level artwork and seeing what masterpieces we have to hang (we hang everything...if you search "art show" in that search bar on the right, you'll get a taste of our art shows). In doing so, I noticed that my second graders didn't have that one BIG masterpiece. So I pulled out the bingo daubers (yet again) and some huge tagboard and we created these! We did the drawing portion in the first 30 minute art class and we are slowly adding color. These are not finished yet...but the lesson has been so fun that I thought I'd share it with you as we make progress. Here's the lesson video:

For this lesson, we are using our bingo daubers filled with slightly diluted India ink, oil pastels and liquid watercolor. To finish, we'll simply be painting the flowers and the backgrounds...with the option to add color to the vase and table. I rather like the black and white because I find it to be a beautiful balance with all of the color but I'll let the artists decide.

 After our first 30 minutes. It wasn't really a guided drawing...more of a "here's how you can draw some flowers and here's how you can draw some vases and patterns...go to town." We never use pencils first, we just go for it. If they painted something they didn't love, they had to wait until next art class to try again on the back of the paper. This tag board was thick enough for them to do that. The reason I have them wait is because they usually forget about it as they move on. Also...if one kiddo starts over, THEY ALL WANNA START OVER. So, I nip that in the bud.

 Today we began adding color with oil pastels and watercolor paint. It's a big task as the papers are huge. We literally spread all out over the room because only two to three kids can work at a table at a time due to the size. 

 I don't have a favorite liquid watercolor, do you? I find that they are all pretty fantastic. Except the fluorescent ones. They universally stick. 

 I don't dilute my liquid watercolors much...I love how vibrant they are!

I got the great idea from Katie Allain (@mrsallainart on IG) to put my watercolor paint in these color coded cupcake liners to eliminate the guesswork! 

 I'll be sure to do a follow up post on these once complete. I'm so excited! They make my heart happy. 

 Also...this is now my fourth bingo dauber project! The only grade who has not worked with them is fourth and I totally have a project lined up for them using these bad boys. They my fave this year!

 

Are you a bingo-dauber-aholic like me?! I wanna know what you and your young artists have created!

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Abstract Painting in First Grade

Last week, my first graders, who I see for 30 minutes twice a week, spent one class learning as much as they could about Wassily Kandinsky, abstract art, non-objective vs. objective and painting to music...all in 30 minutes. Whew! It was fast and furious. Here's a peak into our lesson and time together. 

My students absolutely LOVED this lesson and I cannot wait to share with you what our plan is for our paintings. In the meantime, I've been asked a lot what supplies we used for this lesson. Let's start with the paper. I ALWAYS buy 80lbs paper because it's the best paper for everything: watercolor paint, tempera, collage, you name it. I purchase about 4 reams a year for my 350 students.

 My go-to watercolor pan watercolor is Crayola's Mixing Colors. I only order the refill sets, never new sets. I order the following colors: magenta, red, red-orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, blue-violet and purple.

 My VERY favorite oil pastels for resist are the florescent oil pastels by Sargent. All of the supplies mentioned can be found in your art supply catalog. 

 If you watch my video, you'll notice I do A LOT of call and response. It's my number one teaching tool...I probably use it to a fault! However, it's a great way for me to keep my students attention, teach vocabulary and have them retain information and directions. It also WORKS WONDERS for my English language learners...they LOVE repeating after me!

 Also...can we talk about what amazing abstract artists these guys are?! Holy cats! I am seriously thinking of printing their paintings on some fabric. I need these masterpieces as a dress, y'all!

 I'm so excited to share with you what the master plan is for these...so be sure and stay tuned!

 What are your favorite ways to teach kiddos about abstract painting? Do you have a favorite artist that you like to introduce your students to? I'd love to know!

 Thank you for letting me share these amazing abstract masterpiece by first grade with y'all. I hope they make you as happy as they make me!

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