Watercolour Turtles using Warm and Cool Colours

Watercolour Turtle

This lesson is actually my homework for the second ecourse I'm doing at Deep Space Sparkle - Beyond the Basics.  I just loved the first course so much I'm now doing the follow up course.  This post is a little different to my normal ones, in that I haven't actually done this lesson with the children.  I quite like it though so I think I will try it next week!  In true homework style I've left this to the very last minute and its due tonight and I'm just doing it now.  That said I did hold a home science party for my son yesterday and in true "Fiona" fashion I took it as an opportunity to show my creative flair and it was a full on affair with homemade everything!  Completely time consuming.... Post to come on that too!

So back to the homework - today's post is a lesson plan for Watercolour Turtles.  We had to recreate a lesson from the course with a different subject and when I showed my 7 year old the lovely Paul Klee fish in the course she said that would look great as turtles - so to follow a child's lead that's what I did.  Now turtles aren't typically bright colours yet I'm always telling the kids that artists can paint things whatever colour they want.....

WATERCOLOUR TURTLES USING WARM AND COOL COLOURS

Age 5 - 8 years (Since I have children up to 12 years in my classes, I would do the same lesson for the entire class however older children may wish to draw their turtles in more detail and with black permanent marker)
 
What you need:

• Watercolour Paper A3 size
• Black oil pastel
• White oil pastel
• Liquid Watercolours
• Salt
• Blue Glitter (optional)

How to:

• On the whiteboard demonstrate how to draw a turtle using various shape shells, flippers and shell decorations.  I would also put up a couple of pictures of real turtles. I always tell the children they can be creative as they like yet I also do a directed line drawing for those who are a little stuck as to where to start.

Examples of different ways to draw turtles (for whiteboard)

• Ask the children to draw their turtle using a black oil pastel
• Ask them to draw in the waves, fish, coral etc with the white oil pastel in the background

• Paint the background in cool colours (with a sprinkle of glitter if you wish, I LOVE glitter!)

close up of cool colours and glitter

• Paint the turtle with warm colours

Close up of warm colours and salt

• Sprinkle salt onto the turtles shell to create a speckled effect

The Results:

Beautiful turtle - my teacher example of course.  I will post the children's pictures next week, I'm sure they will be even better!

Cheers
Fiona