Art for Kids: Drawing and Watercolor Painting the Earth for Earth Day

1. Introduction and Supplies You Will Need: Hi friends, how are you? I hope you're having a really great day today. I'd like to introduce this project to you. This is a drawing and watercolor painting project that I designed, especially for kids. You do not need to have any drawing or painting experience at all to be successful with this project. I will teach you step-by-step all of the steps that you need to take and you will feel comfortable at all times. Today we will be making this earth that is in space. So to do that, we need to have certain supplies and materials. This applies in the materials that you will need for this project are a piece of watercolor paper. You will need some watercolor paints. You will need a bowl or a cup of clean water. You will need a paintbrush. You will need a pencil with an eraser. You will also need a black crayon or a black oil pastel, and a white crayon or a white oil pastel. You will need a paper towel. And you will also need some sort of a round circle template. It can be a piece of paper. It can be a bowl or a lid. I'm using this plate today. Okay. So go ahead and gather those supplies and materials and I'll see you in the next video. 2. Step 1: Draw the Earth and Stars: In this step, we are going to draw our Earth. We're going to draw the outline of our earth. So go ahead and pick up your pencil and place your template, whether it be a circle template or a plate, or a bowl or a lid, place it in about the center of your piece of paper. Then what you'll want to do with your non writing hand is hold your template down. You're going to trace around the circle. And you're going to use a slight pressure. You don't need to press too hard just as long as you can see it. All righty. Now that we have gone around our template, we're going to pick that up and you will see a circle. So that is going to be our Earth. The next step is we are going to outline this circle with either our black oil pastel or our black crayon. I'm going to use my black oil pastel, but you can use either one. I'm going to go slowly and carefully so I can do my best work. And I'm just going to trace all the way around on that circle. I'm going to try to really, really try to stay on that circle. Sometimes I might go off a little bit and that's okay, but try your best. There we go. Now that we've done, now what we're going to do next. And if you have some black on your fingers, you can wipe that off on your paper towel because black oil pastels can get very messy. What we're going to do next is pick up a white whale pests down. And we're going to move to the background. And we're going to put just little stars and you're not going to be able to see my stars and I really can't see them either. But I'm going to press fairly hard with my white. And I'm just making small dots all in the background. And these are going to be some stars. So you're not going to be able to see mine, but they are there. And when I apply some watercolor paint, they will stand out. Alright, now that we have our circle for our Earth and we have our stars in the background. What we're going to do next in the next video is we are going to apply some paint to our piece of paper. So I'll see you back here in the next video. 3. Step 2: Paint the Design: In this step, we are going to apply some paint to our piece of paper. So to prepare our paints, what we're going to do is we are going to put a drop of water inside each pan of paint. And what that does is it dissolves the paint just a little bit, so it makes it a lot easier to use. This is a tip that I got from one of my teachers when I was young, and I've used it ever since I learned about it. All right, so we're going to let that soak in a little bit and dissolve a little bit. So now let's turn our attention to our piece of paper. As you can see, we have a circle here in the middle and that's going to represent our Earth. We also have some stars in the background that we created with our white oil pastel or crayon, but we can't see those. We will be able to see them when we apply paint and they will kind of pop out. Okay, so we're going to create our Earth first right here. Now, keep in mind that we are going to use the colors green for the land, in blue for the oceans. Remember that Earth's surface is covered with mostly water. So we want our Earth to have mostly blue on it, as opposed to green. We're not going to be able to control where the paint goes 100% of the time. But that's one of the wonderful things about watercolor paint is kinda spreads around a little bit. So it's kind of unexpected what it's going to do. Okay, so the first color that we're going to use is green. And what I'm going to do is I am just going to start putting some blobs of green. And I'm going to think about what I think that the Earth looks like. And you think about what the Earth looks like also. And just put some blobs of green where you feel like you want to put them, right? So I think I want to put some here, maybe here. And I'm just going to come down like this. And maybe I'll put some more down here. That's self America. And then maybe I'll come back up here. And we'll just trying to think in my brain without looking at a picture what I think that the earth kinda looks like. Now remember, you do not have to be precise with this project, okay? This is completely up to you how you want to create your land. So now that I have my outlines, I'm just going to start filling those in with the green. Already friends. So this is what I think that the Earth looks like in my own mind. And it's probably not what it really looks like in real life, but that's okay. I'm not worried about that. I think it looks pretty good. So what we're going to do next is we are going to skip painting the ocean because we want this land, this paint for the land to dry just a little bit. And then we're going to come back and we're going to add some blue. Let's turn our attention to the outside of our circle. And we're going to have this part via a purplish color or dark blue. It's up to you. And we're just going to fill in this whole, entire space because this earth is going to be sitting in space. So I'm going to choose purple and I'm just going to start painting. And I'm not sure if you can see on the video. But I can see my stars, my white stars that are starting to pop out, they are resisting. That means pushing against my watercolor paint. And you can see them just a little bit on your piece of paper. You'll probably be able to see them a little bit better. So I'm going to take a minute and I'm going to speed up this video. And I'll see you back here in just a minute. All right, friends. So I'm finished with my background for my earth. I love how it turned out. Okay, so the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to add some blue here to represent the water on our Earth. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to choose I think this color blue. And I'm just going to start here and I'm going to remember that if my green paint starts running around into my blue, I'm not going to worry about it. That's just the nature of watercolor paint. So make sure you go right up to the land area with your blue paint. And remember, some of it will probably spread because it's probably not all the way dry. So I'm going to just push that paint around. I'm going to speed up this video and I'll see you back here in just a minute. Alrighty friends. I'm back and I really like the way that my painting looks. It is blending a little bit right here, and that's exactly what I want. I did take off a little bit of my paint in this area down here because it was a little bit dark and a little bit too wet for my liking. So the way that I did that is I just took my handy-dandy paper towel and I touched gently in that. What that does is it brings up the paint, it absorbs the paint a little bit. So that list that. And I hope that you enjoyed this lesson and I will see you next time.