Painting With Watercolor

What You Need:

• Watercolor paint
• Watercolor paper (11” x 17”)
• Paintbrushes
• Water cup
• Pencil
• Leaves

What You Do:

1. Have your child go on a hunt outside for a beautiful, unique leaf. Kids can pick a few, and then choose their favorite to work from.
2. Have your child lightly trace their leaf twice with pencil onto watercolor paper. There should be a nice-sized space between the two traced leaves.
3. To paint the first leaf, dip a paintbrush into the water cup and cover one of the drawn leaves with water, saturating the paper so it is wet.
4. Fill in the leaf with one paint color. Observe how challenging it is to control the paint, and yet how “painterly” the effect is. Children can allow the paint to dry for a few minutes and, with a finer brush, add in details they observe on the leaf they picked. The lines will be difficult to control, and may spread.
5. To paint the second traced leaf, your child will use a detail brush and the same watercolor paint, but this time applied to the dry outline. The experience is completely different! Your painter should have much more control, and be able to add in fine details.
6. Allow both leaves to dry completely. Cut them out using their traced outlines and mount them on black paper.

Helpful Tip: For a lighter tint, add more water to your paint. For a darker tint, use less water. Darker tints are ideal for shadows and fine details, like lines.