We first spent a few minutes discussing the work we did last week and how we did it… under tight control and then in preparation for the EXPERIMENTS IN WATERCOLOUR, we talked about the qualities of the watercolour paint and how we found out that we could allow the colours to run or ‘bleed’ together, how interesting effects were created by letting the paint move from one part of the paper to another. One child said the paint ‘SURFED’ the paper, causing a colour mixing effect!

Today we wanted to EXPERIMENT and see how we could use the paints to PAINT THE SKY! P3 were studying the weather at the minute so this linked in so well with the subject.

Our aim was to try a few TECHNIQUES and then use what we learned to paint the sky.

We used TESTER pieces of watercolour paper and first tried painting a WASH.

The children tried this for themselves, a couple of times so that they knew what they were doing. I was guiding them from the screen.

TAKE A PIECE OF PAPER AND WIDE BRUSH AND AFTER MIXING UP ENOUGH PAINT AT A TIME, TAKE THE BRUSH LOADED WITH WATERY PAINT AND PAINT FROM ONE SIDE OF THE PAPER TO THE OTHER, STARTING AT THE TOP AND WORKING DOWNWARD.

YOU CAN TILT YOUR PAPER AS YOU DO THIS, TO HELP THE PAINT RUN DOWN. YOU TRY TO COVER ALL THE PAGE.

   

   

On the second attempt the children tried using tissue tor cotton wool to DAB OFF some of the paint to see what sort of effects it created.

   

      

     

    

     

Next we tired different ways of using the brush…

TAKE A CLEAN PIECE OF PAPER AND A DRYISH BRUSH WITH PAINT ON AND TRAIL YOUR BRUSH FROM ONE SIDE OF THE PAGE TO THE OTHER. DRAG THE BRUSH OR ROLL IT….

GREAT RESULTS P3!

    

     

    

     

    

    

     

Another TECHNIQUE is WAX RESIST and for most children this was a totally new experience.

USING A WAX CRAYON OR OIL PASTEL MAKE LINES, SHAPES OR MARKS OVER PART OF THE PAGE. THEN TAKE A BRUSH LOADED WITH PAINT AND PAINT OVER THE CRAYON MARKS… LOOK WHAT HAPPENS!

After break the children told me the sky over CROSSMAGLEN was:

GREY

PATCHES OF BLUE

WHITE SUN BEHIND THE CLOUDS

Mrs Hughes said the were excited to try the learned techniques to paint the sky.. look at these wonderful skies….

     

    

      

     

    

    

   

    

   

   

     

    

    

   

I didn’t get time to show the children some other artists work, but here’s some more watercolour skies……..

First Joseph Mallord Turner who liked to sketch with watercolour out in the open air.

 

Also this amazing painting by Seán McSweeney who lives and works in North County Sligo.

Here I found an interesting interview with Seán made by young people in Sligo a few years ago. Have a look at the link. Seán talks about how he gets his inspiration and how important it is that he looks at the world around him.. the sea and the sky.

 

http://themodel.ie/weblog/young-model-interview-san-mcsweeney