Wet on wet watercolor painting questions

[Plarka]

My daughters are 3.5 and 13 months.  (Lately the 13 month old has been joining in too!)  I bought some Stockmar watercolors and some watercolor paper a few months ago and we love doing wet on wet painting.

My questions are:

1. I need more color stories

2.  I think our paper is too wet but I'm not sure, how wet or dry is it supposed to be?

3.  What should we be painting? We always just do whatever, thick lines across the page, big blobs here and there, watch the colors bleed and mix.....I need new ideas of what to paint!

4.  Is the Painting With Children book useful? The Amazon reviews aren't that great and one said you can find more info online.

Any tips, or websites to look at? When I looked a couple months ago, I couldn't find much.

[Mom2M]

I love watercolors and there are actually lots of videos on youtube with good info.
I like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glf9WMg-FOE

[number572]

You can also sprinkle salt on the paint while its still wet and it'll make neat designs where the salt absorbs, brush it off when it dries.  You can hold the paper to make drip marks where the wet spots of paint drip and run.  Color with wax crayons (think line drawings) and then paint the page, the wax repels the watercolor and looks neat.  You can try frisket (a rubber cement type of material that rubs off after the paint dries).  Here's a frisket tutorial:

http://www.watercolorpainting.com/watercolorpainting/masking.htm

If you google "cool watercolor techniques, you'll get good ideas.  Rubbing alcohol, a hair dryer, textures material or paper towels are other things I've used in my own watercolor work.

Also, you can take any old watercolor pieces and cut shapes and things out then glue them to another piece to make collages.  Adding random found items like dried leaves, pieces of sticks, acorns, feathers, etc. is neat.  Have fun!

[LuxPerpetua]

I did this post on my blog about wet-on-wet painting not too long ago, and it may be helpful. https://canticlesbycandlelight.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/unraveling-the-mystery-of-wet-on-wet-painting/ 

In general, I found the Painting with Children book so disappointing.  I got it to have color stories and such and it really didn't fit the bill.  I think Little Acorn Learning included painting color stories in their monthly e-books, but they are kind of pricey.  Maybe try one month and see?

We started doing wet-on-wet when dd was 3 (she's over 5 now) so after about a year and half we moved on to painting forms using wet-on-wet.  I mean, it gets really boring painting blobs over and over forever.  It is meditative, and sometimes we still do it, but we have progressed to painting trees, animals, nature scenes, candlelight, etc.  Dd loves to paint pictures from stories we read, so we do that too.  Usually we do a background "wash" of a color and then use a prefold to wipe out a space for a form and then paint the form there.  It also makes a neat effect to just wipe out white spaces.  They look very fairy-like.

[JudiAU]

I had a hard time learning how too. The quality of paper made a difference too so I had to play around with several brands. (I have some expensive $1/sheet German paper but we've never used it.) Some of the paper clearly didn't work well with wet on wet. Faber-Castell is pretty inexpensive and widely available. We've also done some watercolor postcards this way.

I love the idea of the salt trick.

[Plarka]

I got sort of expensive paper and cut it into post card type sizes, well, maybe twice the size.  Should we really be using bigger sized paper? Am I limiting us or something?

[number572]

I use everything from tiny 2"x2" to postcard size to huge 48"x48" (i like squares! lol). I've torn some to size to keep the torn edge look and also cut some in shapes other than quadrilateral shapes.  You can punch holes around the edges and thread yarn or rafia or whatever to "frame" them.  Make mobiles with sticks and string and smaller watercolor pieces, etc.  I send the postcard sized ones to family as a postcard thru USPS b'c I use that size a lot for daily practice, so I end up with many many.  I'm not sure if it would seem too small for young kids but that size works well for me.  You could glue stick the more expensive postcard size to a cheaper and thinner 8"x10" size, so that the effects would vary from edge paper to background paper and also to save money but still have a large working space?

If you use thinner paper, using less water (still wet on wet) and blotting some off using textured paper towels or pieces of washable textured materials is good, like terry cloth rags.  That would still create textures and color variation.  You can also put mixed watercolors in small sprayer bottles and spray it on for a different effect.  Watercolors are very versatile!

Does your 3.5yo ask for larger pieces?  Have you checked online discount art supply retailers?  Like Pearl or Jerry's Artarama or Dick Blick?  Sometimes they have great sales & clearances.

[honeybunmom]

On a parent teacher night years ago, my daughter's then pre-school teacher ledl parents through a wet on wet painting demonstration.  During our discussion, the paper was soaking in a bin of water.  So, maybe 1/2 hour or more (I don't usually give it that much time at home).  She took out each sheet, laying it on a painting board and then used a sponge - moving in one direction - to remove excess water.  Then, we were ready to paint.  My ds turned 2 on Saturday and we gave him a paint brush as one of his gifts.  "PAINT!" i haven't really used color stories with my kids since they do/will get it at school.  For now, the little guy has been painting for maybe 6 mos or so and he is happy to just wash the page in color.  My 5.5 year old is now painting pictures and using several colors.

[annettemarie]

Originally Posted by Plarka 

I got sort of expensive paper and cut it into post card type sizes, well, maybe twice the size.  Should we really be using bigger sized paper? Am I limiting us or something?

For preschoolers, I really would use larger paper. For that age, any type of painting is as much a large motor experience as anything else, and they need a big area to work. Small children just don't have the fine motor skills to explore like they want to in a small space. Additionally, some of the value of painting is that they cross the midline when painting, which they don't really do when they're confined to a smaller canvas. You might want to check child care supply catalogs (Discount School Supply, Lakeshore) for watercolor paper in bulk.

[rowanberry]

We just covered this topic in playgroup this morning...

The corners of our paper had been rounded (to soften the paper, to keep an "under 7", as we call them, in the dreamy stat) and it was soaked in water for a few moments, not long at all. The kindergarten teacher says she soaks them for about 10 minutes. Then, after being placed on the painting board we wiped it left to right with a rag. They explained that they wipe it left to right to help the children to learn to track things with their eyes, and left to right for future reading readiness. The paper was to be damp, but not wet or soaking. No water should drip when you hold it up. The teachers then said that they encourage the children to start in the center of the paper and that the goal is to have an enriching, satisfying experience with color. Really paying attention to the color and how it feels, looks, etc. Our kindergarten rooms start with only one color at a time to help this. 

That was about it. I don't know anything about the stories, I've never read any or heard any. :-)

[kcchicago]

Hi - 

New to the community and interested in Waldorf!  We are attending PC classes 1x per week and loving them.

Going to start our own wet on wet experiments today.

Found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23jVRUSlz7o on you tube just now.  Bella Luna toys owner demo'ing wet on wet.  About 15min between both videos, but good info for beginners like me.

Only complaint is that I didn't get to see the finished product on the videos!

KC