Coconut tree in resist - watercolour.

Greetings! 

Who doesn't love the sight of coconut trees swaying by a sandy beach? I know I do. Let's take a trip to the tropics and paint a beautiful Coconut tree in resist watercolour!

Fun-fact, did you know, every part of the coconut tree is useful  to humans? In India it also called, 'Kalpa-vriksha' or wish-fulfilling tree. The coconut gives us oil, the exterior of the nut gives us coir, from which we can make strong rope, its fronds can be used to make a thatched roof and so on. Now that we know a little about this giving tree let's begin our art project!

Coconut tree in watercolour resist.

You will need

• Paper ~ an absorbent and thick paper is always good for watercolours. I'm using a half-imperial or A5 size sheet.

• Pencil to draw

• Oil pastels or if you have wax crayons that's ok too

• Watercolour cake box or tubes

• Brush, a no.6 or 7 will do.

•Bowls, I always suggest two, one for cleaning the brush, one for mixing paint.

• small cloth or paper towel for wiping brushes and mopping spills and messes made by little hands.

1) Draw your Coconut tree big enough to cover most of your paper.

2) Tracing your drawing in oil pastels~ Trace with colourful oil pastels  or  use only white. This art lesson is a resist method, meaning, when we  paint it will not adhere to the crayon lines, thus  creating a very interesting effect!

3) Painting ~

• Wet your brush, using only water, brush the entire surface of the paper, taking care not to make it soggy.

• Begining with the fronds of the tree, paint with watercolours. Since the paper is wet, the colours will spread easily and bleed into each other. This method is called wet into wet.

• I've used light and dark green in the fronds, magenta for the evening sky, and a purple, cobalt and cerulean for the water, browns with a bit of crimson for tree trunk, earth and of course yellow for the sun

Allow your paper to dry and voilà, your Coconut tree in watercolour resist is done! 

Time to take a look at this week's little artists ☺️ 

Hope this lesson is helpful especially to anyone looking for art activities to do at home during this pandemic or for your virtual classroom.  Be safe and well, and do check out my other art lessons, please say hello in the comments, or email me, if you have any requests. I am always thinking of what to teach next and ideas are always welcome. 

See you in another post!

~Sabrina.

Rainy Day, Memory Drawing.

The monsoon brings fresh greenery, puddles for kids to stomp in and lots more. The rains are also when the new academic year begins and I vividly remember from my own school days,  doing  Rainy day as an art lesson. Well here we are after many many years and it is still a fun  lesson on season as well as a good memory drawing exercise. This can be easily done by children above the age of 7 and above. 

Let's begin, you will need 

• Paper, I'm using a half imperial size sheet, or A3. 

• Pencil, eraser,

• Sketch pen- black or brownr

• Oil pastels. 

1) Composing~ With the help of this simple grid you can see that the girl is placed a little off-centre to the right, and the child, with the paper boat is to the left.

2) Drawing the figures ~  Begin with the standing child, holding an umbrella. By altering the hair, you can draw either boy or a girl. 

Draw the rest of the girl (or boy), wearing a raincoat, and what we call in India gum boots, leave me a comment, telling me what they are called where you live!

Let's draw the second child who is about to float a paperboat. Draw his back in a continuous line, from the hood down, adding his hands, legs and finally connect limbs with belly. His face peeps in just a bit under his hood, as we are seeing him from the side.

3) Background~ Draw a puddle, the one nearer to them is bigger and the one farther away from them is smaller, follow the same when drawing the trees. Draw a horizon line, adding a hedge.

4) Colouring ~ With a black or brown sketch pen trace over your pencil drawing. A sketch pen will look bold whereas a brown one will soften the edges, appearing more natural. Once you've done that, lay out your oil pastels, feel free to colour your picture in colours you prefer, but keeping it looking realistic.

Oil pastels are really soft and great for blending, use medium and  dark browns for the  barks of trees, light and dark greens on the grass and tree canopies. I have used grey in the top half of the sky with a medium blue till the horizon.

The last and most enjoyable part is making dashes for raindrops all over your paper with a deep blue crayon or how else would it be a rainy day? 😊 and don't worry you are not going to ruin it, it's fun!

Tada! There you have it, a Rainy Day  !

If you like this art lesson leave me a comment, share this art lesson with your friends and family, if you are on Instagram, share your artwork with the #brushesandcrayons

In today's gallery we have 7 year old Pranet.

This blog is still growing in content, and I hope to put out more this July, until then you can check out the previous post on Sun-Moon Scratch Art

Hope this lesson was helpful, see you in another post!

~ Sabrina.