Materials
Newspaper
Smocks
A color wheel
Heavyweight art or watercolor paper
Small paper cups or shallow plastic trays
Water
Watercolor paints
Paintbrushes
Large sponges cut into 2" (5 cm) cubes
Cloth towels
Instructions
What to do
1. Cover the work area with newspaper and have the children put on their smocks.
2. Show the color wheel to the children and ask them to say which colors make them feel warm
and which ones make them feel cool. Help them identify red, yellow, and orange as warm colors
and blue, green, and purple as cool colors; explain that a painting with only warm or cool colors
is called a wash.
3. Fill the small cups or trays with water.
4. Demonstrate how to dip the paintbrush into the water and wet each color in the watercolor
tray.
5. Have the children dip the small sponge into the water and wet their paper completely. The children
can dry their hands on the towels before continuing.
6. Before the water dries, have them dip their brush into a warm or cool color, coating the brush,
then brush color in broad strokes across the paper.
7. Continue painting in this manner, using only warm or cool colors, until the paper is covered in
color. Allow sufficient time for drying.
More to do
More art: Make another wash, using the opposite of the colors they used the first time. After the
painting has dried, draw a design on it in black crayon.
