Watercolour Landscapes

By Sebaga (Year 2)

Lesson Background:
As a part of our watercolours unit this term, we have been learning how to mix watercolour paints, use different types of watercolour washes, use fine detail and use a range of watercolour and art techniques.  I have been amazed at how much my students have learnt in this very challenging unit of work.  This lesson took about 3 hours (1 hour to draw the artwork and paint the large area washes, 1 hour to fill in the smaller finer details and 1 hour to "perfect" the artwork and outline it).  I love these artworks because they remind me of the beautiful Brindabella mountains surrounding our city.  The artwork is based on one I found through Google Images, selected because of its simiplicity, beauty and its use of a variety of techniques the students had been learning about: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqr-sAL4-SEW2plPhdCQviozU0gtNhQokvhsScRJfrVUVopEVjx-fY3mtI00SwjdjRj873oZP9kq8OJtzNL0VGItJNPk14SlFrXHNWMPFLRIM91pelenbhy1VAhm5vtNrtcGg1YNo3Q/s1600/ab_spring_landscape.jpg

Lesson Materials:
1 sheet A3 watercolour paper per child
1 thin, medium and thick watercolour brush per child
1 palette of watercolour paints from tubes (purple, light green, dark green, brown, blue, yellow)
A serviette or tisse per child (to wipe brush on, dab at drips on artworks, etc)
2 water containers per pair (1 for washing brushes in to clean them & one for clean water to mix with colours)

Lesson Steps:
1.1.  Draw the parts of the picture lightly with a lead pencil. (I modelled how to draw each part using positioning language- "the grass should start about 1 hand space up from the bottom of the page", "the bushes are about 3 finger spaces wide" etc)

2.2.  Paint the sky with a graded blue wash. 
3.3.  Paint a green wash on the grass. Let it dry.Using a dry brush with the bristles splayed out between your fingers, dip the brush into some different shades of green and do quick, short strokes to create grass (Make sure the paint isn’t too watery).
5.4. Paint the bushes with a yellow wash- wet on wet.

5.  “Drop in” light and dark green splodges while the yellow is still slightly wet.  The colours should slightly bleed so that they become fuzzy and blend a little (ie. they don't stay looking like singular splodges but they also don't bleed so much that they completely blend in as one colour).

6.  Paint a solid wash of purple on the mountains.  When nearly dry, add in some blue and dark purple shadows, smoothing out with a slightly wet brush so that the mountains are smooth with no blobs or lines of 1 colour.

7.  When the mountains, bushes and grass are dry, use a small thin brush to paint brown tree trunks. 

8.  Paint the tree foliage with a solid wash of yellow or light green.

9.  While the tree foliage wash is still a little wet, "drop in" light greens and dark greens to create the leaves.  Students could also use wrist flicks or dry brush to create the tree leaves.

10. When the artwork is dry, outline in black permanent marker.

 

Student Artworks:

By Jeff (Year 1)



By Kayla (Year 1)



 

 

By Jasmine (Year 1)

By Ashley (Year 2)

By Charlotte (Year 2)

By Eloise (Year 2)

By Paige (Year 1)

1/2B artworks