Painting Wet on Wet Part 2

About a week or so ago, I shared this photo of my first attempt at wet on wet watercolor painting. I wanted to experiment with it a bit before introducing it to my children. We all sat down the other night and gave it a go. The kids loved it! And I loved that while they were painting, they were creating little stories and characters out of the images that were being created. This is more abstract, and because the paper and paint are both very wet, it's near impossible to make "perfect" pictures, which can be great for the little artist who is not so sure of themselves. You could almost compare this to finding images in clouds.

What you need:
Watercolors (the kind in tubes that you mix with water)
Watercolor paper (this is a must because you wet the paper and it needs to be sturdy enough to still paint on)
Small cups (for paint dishes, and a water dish)
A sponge or dish towel
Paint brushes (bigger fanned brushes work best, but any will do)
Faucet
Plates (not paper - you'll see why in a moment)
Small towels for blotting brushes

I started with only two colors for each child so they wouldn't end up with a large brown smudgy picture.

To avoid major spills, or flying paint (you never know!), I only gave them each as much paint as I thought they would use up. The amount in the pictures was actually still too much, but we didn't encounter any huge issues, so it was okay. I also cut each water color paper sheet into fourths. My children are smaller, so I think that works better for them, and it also made each page small enough to fit on a ceramic plate for the painting process (again, avoiding a huge potential mess).

Instead of dunking the paper in a bin of water, I just ran it under the faucet, and made sure every part was wet. Then I very lightly sponged off the excess water, put it on a plate and handed it over to the kids.

My daughter took to it right away, and ended up having a mini-meltdown when we ran out of paper for her. My son took a few minutes to get comfortable with the idea that he couldn't create solid lines and "perfect" pictures, but once he got over that, he had a great time. Both are still incredibly proud of their work, and so am I... The photos below really don't do them much justice.

Have a great day!

-Lisa