Magic Marker Monday — Fun With Watercolor Crayons

"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

~Pablo Picasso

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Jacqui is officially a kindergartener, and quite pleased with herself! We are homeschooling, for a number of reasons — one of them being that we were unable to see that all of her unique needs for safety in a public school setting could be met, another being her ongoing challenges with eating independently. So long story short, we are having a blast learning at home. And of course, art is part of our day!

As part of our school year we have started working our way through a kindergarten art book by Artistic Pursuits, and I have been soooooo impressed with this book! It teaches appreciation for classical art, basic art and composition concepts, and includes wonderful art projects based on examples of classical art. It is filled with full-color paintings and tons of ideas on how to teach your child to love art, and this was one of Jacqui's first projects: Princess Jacqui (we've been having lots of princess themes going on around here lately) with a kitty on the left and a flower and a doggy on the right.

We put together a real honest-to-goodness artist kit for her and she is learning so much about how to be careful and take care of her things. One of the items in her art kit is a set of 10 wonderful watersoluble crayons that we picked up at a local art shop. They're a bit pricey online, but they weren't too bad when we found them locally for about $8.00.

Jacqui has been frustrated with painting in the past, because she focuses so tightly on details. A paintbrush has been one of the quickest ways to put her in tears. But what a difference with these crayons! She was able to put the colors in where she wanted them with a level of detail that made her happy, and then she was relaxed enough to start learning some brush techniques and discovered all on her own that by controlling the amount of water held by her paintbrush, she could keep the colors from running all over the page. It was so much fun to watch her giggle her way through a paint session!

The only issue we had was a minor one — she insisted that the doggy on the right had to have nostrils, which she couldn't do with the watercolors. So I showed her how we could wait for the painting to dry and then come back with a marker and put in the details (like doggy nostrils) that were so important to her.

Learning and fun all rolled together — doesn't get any better than that!

What about you? What has your little artist been up to lately?

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