Easy watercolor for kids: Fishy Fun

1. Intro to Fishy Fun: Are your kids bored? Do you need something fun and exciting for them to do? Well, this is the class for you. We will be making two art projects in this class. Both will be about fish. In this art class, you will be learning how to make your own template, how to use salt, to create texture in your painting, and how to relax and become more confident in watercolors. This class is specifically for children. Hi, I'm Wendy Lee. I've been a teacher for the last 20 years and I've been teaching children art as well as adults art. I teach drawing, acrylic painting, and watercolors. Come join me for some fishy fun, a watercolor project for children. 2. Materials: Welcome to the fishy fun art class. Before we begin, we need some art materials. You can use watercolor paper. I've used hot press watercolor paper. Hot press, acid free watercolor paper, size A four, or you could use any other type of watercolor paper or card, if you do not have access to watercolor paper. We also need water colors. You can use the watercolors in the paint pans, or you can use the watercolors in the tubes. Both work very nicely for this project. Wax crayons, watercolor brushes. I've used a wider brush for the background and a smaller brush for smaller areas. This is a size 12 brush, and as you can see, this one, I can't see what size it is, but it's a nice wide one for the background. We will also need a jar of clean water. Little spray of water. This is optional. It's just to keep my paint in my paint pans wet. Some table salt or himalayan salt. The brand that you have might differ from the one that I have, but that doesn't matter. It will create a beautiful effect, nevertheless. A pair of scissors. So masking tape just to tape the edges of our painting down so that it doesn't buckle. Or you could use this is masking tape. You could also use artist's tape, a pencil and an eraser. And then So cardboard. I've just used a cereal box. I'm going to be cutting this up and using it to make my template. You can use any cereal box or any cardboard that card that you can find at home. Last but not least, some foil. This is optional. We might add. You might find that you want to add this to your fish to create a shiny special effect. Let's get started. 3. Making a template: We are going to be using a piece of cardboard. I just used a breakfast cereal box, but you can use any cardboard that you have at home, and we're going to make a template so that we can use it in our artwork. The reason for making a template is so that we don't have to redraw our fish every time. To make a template of our fish, I'm going to just make the top of an oval, and then almost like the shape of an eye. See it looks like an eye. Then I'm going to come in like that and just chip chop it there. I'm going to make a little tail on the end. This is just a basic she and a fin. And two little fins underneath. There we have our basic fish shape, and I'm going to draw an eye so that I can see where to draw it when I do my are to it later. There we go. Now we're going to draw two more, but make them a little bit smaller than the top one. I'm just going to measure a line. I'm going to make sure they're a bit smaller. We need a medium sized. Here we go, make your eye shape. If you want to do it like this, you can wrap that little piece out as well. Tiny little fins at the bottom. And I. Now I'm going to make another file bit smaller than the first. There we go. Easy, pas. Now we're going to cut these out so that we can use them a little bit later. I'm going to cut the first fish out. To make it easier for yourself. If you're using a big piece of card, just cut it across like that. And then I'm just going to cut this out. Of course, your fish don't have to look like mine. You can change them and draw them any way you want to. It's easier to make the template so that you don't have to draw so many fish on your artwork because you just trace around your template. Was, remember, if you're using a sharp scissors to have mom or dad help you with it with the cutting. Look at that. The first fish has been cut out. Now, for the next two. Now that all three fish have been cut out, we can use them to draw our artwork. See you in the next video. 4. Drawing kissing fish: Once you have drawn and cut out your template, it's ready to use. So you can decide where you want it on your page. I'm going to put it here, and then you just trace around it. By doing this, all your fish will be the same shape and size. You're welcome to make your fish different sizes, too, if you like. Hold it still. And trace around it. As you can see, I've taped my page down so that when I start painting, it doesn't buckle. I made a very, very narrow edge so that the frame is not too wide. Part of my fish will be slightly off the page. Now I'm going to turn the fish over and do one facing this way, and it will only be a partial fish. So two little fish will look at each other. All right, I'm going to be placing my fish in different places now, and you can decide wherever you want it. You don't have to put it in the same places that I've put mine. There we go. And I think I'll You can do a few some of them to the left and some of them facing to the right. If you have a bigger page, or if you want to do this on a bigger page, you'll be able to fit more fish on, or if you want to turn your page, to landscape, you can also fit. I quite like this view though. Would you just do a little te on the side? Right. Now that I've decided where my fish go, I'm going to just fill in the details. So I'm just going to round this edge again, continue from this point and round this edge to do the fin and at the bottom, round that edge again to join it there to that fin. This is just a basic little fish. Then I'm going to make. Pointed tail here. And I'm going to give it lovely round fish eye. You can make your eye anyway you want to. It can be a real cartoon eye, or it can be a fish eye like that. And then this little section. Now that I've finished drawing all my fish, I'm going to draw a little art here. Looks like these two little fish are or having a little chat, or giving each other a little fish kiss, and I'm going to draw a couple of bubbles. Your bubbles can just be on random places just to fill up the space. Next, we will be drawing it in color. 5. Draw in crayon: For this part, you can use fat wax crayons or some of these. These are called wind ups or roll ups. You roll them in and out, or you can use color pastils. For this, I'm going to make each fish a different color. I'm going to do my heart with these. You need to press pretty hard because once we go over it with the water color, it will resist the, the wax lines. Each fish can be a different color. So you can decide what colors you want to make your fish. Just go over your pencil lines. Oh, I've noticed that this one's got a bit of sparkle in it. Just go over your pencil lines. Remember to press hard, to make a little fishy eye. If you want to make the fins a different color, you're welcome to do that. If you want to make the tail a different color, you're welcome to do that, too. You can even add a couple of scales or patterns onto your just to give it a little bit more interest. I quite like these little patterns. I'm going to continue doing this on the next fish. M bubbles, I'm going to use a white. You welcome to use any color. But the white will create once again a different effect again. I'm just going to go over my pencil marks. As I said, this is quite a decorative piece, so you can make your fish any color you want. We're going to add our water color, and we'll have a lot of fun with that, too, by making it nice and funky. These crowns, don't lag along with me today. Oh If it leaves a little waxy piece that you don't like, just take it off your page. Other interesting looking eye. I think I'll put some patterns on these fish, too. It's just a easy. Looks like ends. You just keep doing that until you get to the end. And if you want to make a couple of lines on your fish's fins, you could do that, too. So these patterns are up to you. How you want yours done. You're welcome to leave them or to do them anyway, you please. And then I think I'm going to color in one or two of these little scales. Just to make it a little bit unusual and a little bit different. I'm not going to color all of them in because I'm going to be using watercolors over it. I'll just color in a couple. Right, I'm happy with this, and I'm ready to paint. 6. Paint kissing fish: I'm going to mix quite a bit of blue paint. I'm going to activate my palette. I love these blues and greens. I'm going to mix up quite a large amount so that I can paint my ocean. Mix a couple of these colors together to create a lovely ocean color. I'm going to use water or just a pale color just to wet my background. And paint right over these bubbles. I think I'm going to first paint my background before I start on the fish. So I'm going to take my blues and just work them into my ocean here. Look at that. It's resisting over the wax to create a beautiful effect. If you want your, your background to be a bit darker, you can drop in some more color, especially around the fish. It doesn't matter if the background is uneven because the texture of water is different wherever you go. All right. So I'm going to wet this and then add more color as I go. So I'm painting around my fish. If a little bit spills over into your fin like that, it's okay. You can just wipe it off with a paper towel or leave it as it is. All right. You can mix your blues with a little bit of green if you want a variety of ocean colors. You don't have to stick to the same one blue all the way through. The one shade of blue. You can add different colors. The water color paper and the water will make the colors blend. Continue to add water to your background, and then you can drop some more color in once you've wet it. So it will be a wet on wet effect. Now, we will let this dry so that when we paint our fish, the colors don't bleed. Into the ocean. While I wait for this to dry, I think I will add a little white dot into each pupil of the eye. Just be careful not to put your hand onto the wet paint. Of course, you can wait for your paint to dry before you do this. Okay. Now I'm going to be painting my fish. And you can paint them any funky colors that you would like. Just because the fish is green, it doesn't have to be green paint. I'm just going to play around here with different colors. Look at that. That creates quite a beautiful effect that wax resist. I'm loading it on with lots of color. I think I'll make the fins a mix of this green and another green. As you see there, I accidentally touched my blue ocean and it was still. You can just it up with a paper to. You can leave it like that for effect. I making these fish as bright as possible. I love bright colors. I quite like this pink. I think I'll make one of the other fish this color, and I might mix it with a little bit of red. You notice your water is getting dirty or murky like mine is. This would be a good time to change up your water for some fresh clean water so that it doesn't muddy your colors. It's also a good idea to have two glass jars or two jars of water so that you don't have to keep jumping up while you are doing your art project. Wow. These colors are so vibrant and beautiful, and this wax. The different color wax crowns just make this painting pop. Hm. I think I'll try a purple. This is really a relaxing, no effort painting, and the colors are so bright, so vibrant. You can put your favorite music on and paint while you listen to your music. It's just something to do to relax. I think I'm going to use the s for this fin here. Look how beautiful this is turning out to be. What color should I choose next? I'm going to paint my eyes. Also, you can paint them any color you want to. If it bleeds like it has, it's okay, add a different flavor and effect your fish. Not sure why it hasn't resisted there. I don't think I pressed hard enough. That's all right. I can take some of the color out of the middle. You just wet your brush, dry it, and then put it on your section that you want open. Take a clean brush and then just dab it to lift the paint. You can do this while. Your painting is still wet. Here we go. Beautiful. I'm not sure I like the effect of this fish. I'm going to wait for it to dry completely before I just paint over it. 7. Lifting technique: So when I look at my painting, I'm very happy with it, but I feel that it's unbalanced on this side, because we've got quite a few bubbles over here and on this side, and at the top of nothing over here. So if you want to add any extra bubbles, anywhere in your page, if you feel there's an empty space, you take a wet brush and you draw a little circle, and then you take your rag or your paper towel, and you just lift it like that, and you can lighten it a little bit more if you want, and you lift it like that. Wow. Of course, you don't have to do this. It's just a different technique to add, if you like. So I'm just lifting the paint off. There we go. This is in case you want any extra bubbles. You don't have to lift it off completely, you can leave some a little bit dimmer than others, but also looks beautiful. I'm just using a rag to lift the color. As I said, you can use a cloth, a rag or a paper towel. Obviously, these will be slightly lighter if you compare these to the wax resist. I was taking a few more here. You can make them different sizes, too, if you like. As I said, this is completely optional. I just felt that I needed a few more bubbles. There we go. Yes, I like that. It's good. And I've decided that this purple doesn't look so bad after all. If you've been painting, and you realize that maybe you lay it too much paint and water on a section, and it puddles. You can also lift it off with a wet brush. Just lift it, squeeze out your brush and keep lifting it if you don't like the puddle, or the effect that the puddle max. But sometimes, as you can see over here, it creates a different texture again and here at the top at in the water. It creates a little coolflowers, which sometimes is quite pretty in your painting. I might add a little bit more dark purple here. U to mix it with a little bit of blue. There we go. I probably didn't press as hard as what I thought I pressed when I drew the wax circle for the eye, and that's okay. I'm just pulling my color across just to make it a bit darker and more vibrant. I think I might actually add a little bit of re into that eye. Just to make it a bit. Here we go. I'm happy with my painting. Are you happy with yours? Wow. This looks so vibrant, so beautiful. I can't wait to do the next project. In the next video, we'll be using our template again and creating a totally new painting. 8. Fishy in the brook drawing: For this class, fishy fishy in the brook, we will be using our templates that we cut out of our cardboard a few minutes ago. But before we use them, we will be drawing the water. So you can just relax your hand, hold your pencil a little bit higher than usual, so that your hand flows across the page and just make the waves. Here we go. We'll be drawing this in pencil first and adding our wax crayon afterwards. And now I'm going to be drawing the line. So this is attached to our fishing road. And I'm going to be drawing the hook. And the reason I'm doing it so close to the top is we need space for all our fish to come at the bottom. So we're going to draw the hook. And here where the line joins the hook. I'm going to just wrap it around like that. So the hook it's very easy to draw. It looks like a umbrella handle. And then up whoops with a sharp point. A little bit of bait, which is a worm will be hanging over our hook. I'm going to just make a s upside down s and then have that little come out. To make him a bit more interesting, I'm going to his tail, and his tail will be round the front of the hook. That as the hook. And coming at a. Okay, you just give him a little face. And he's not too happy. So you can just give him a sad little face if you want. Right. He's not even wrapped too tightly around that hook. But I think he looks cute. Now we're going to use our fish that we made. And you can decide where you want to put your fish. Um Usually we make about three objects in art to catch to cause balance and to catch attention. So I'm going to put my three fish over here. You can make them anywhere. You can even put your fish coming from the top if you like. So this is where I've decided to put my fish. And now I'm just going to trace around my templates. If you are struggling to hold your templates still, you can get somebody to help you to hold them. I'm going to connect all these lines, add in the eye on each fish. Remember to make a rounded line, where these fins join, and a pointed line here where this little tail starts. I'm going to draw little eyes. And I think I'll make my eyes to be looking up so they're facing the worm. To be looking up at the worm, I'm going to leave a little light spot in these eyes. These are really hungry fish. And this piece. Right. Now we are ready to draw in wax or pastel. You can draw your fish any color you want, as long as as long as you press hard while you are drawing. If you press, the watercolor paint will more of a resist over this area. You can decide to do each fish a different color, or you can choose to make them all the same. So I'm just doing outlining the fins now and the tail. And I'm going to outline the eyes of my fish. If you have a white and you want to color in this little spot to represent light in the fish's eye, you are welcome to do that, too. Remember to press hard. Now for my hook. Oh. 9. Paint and details: Let's get onto painting, shall we? I'm going to use my water spray just to activate my colors. I've squeezed a little bit of light blue out of a tube of water color paints because I don't have that color in my paint set. But you are welcome to use any blue that you would like to use. You can mix it with a little bit of green. If you like to create a different type of blue. I'm going to be wetting my whole background that has got the water section. I'm using a wide brush because it's a bigger area. Just be careful when you paint into these smaller areas that the water doesn't sit on that. I'm going to make it nice and wet so that I can add my color to it afterwards. Now, I'm just going to add my blue green water here. If you want your color a little bit, you can a darker pigment into this and just have a with blues and greens to create the color that you would like. While my paint is still wet, I'm going to be adding a little bit of salt just to create some water textures. While I leave that top part to dry, I'm going to be painting the bottom. Once again, I'm going to be starting with wetting the whole area at the bottom. Yeah, where the area starts getting smaller, I'm going to be using a smaller paint brush so that I know it can fit in between the gaps. I'm first painting my water on, and then I will add some color. I'm going to add some dark blue around the bottom just to create the feeling of depth and coldness, cold water. I'm mixing up a darker blue. Once again, while it's still wet, I'm going to add some salt. If you want this section to be a bit, you welcome to just add a bit more color to that as well. I like to always make it a little bit darker around the fish. I just throw a little bit more salt in this section. You can even drop a little bit of color while your salt is on the page. Now I'm going to leave this to dry for a little while, and when it's dry, I'm going to be painting the fish. I'm going to be painting the sky now. It's a slightly different blue to the ocean that we've just painted. Now I'm going to be painting my fish. And once again, I'm going to be using all sorts of fun and funky colors. Remember to keep your paint palette wet so that your paints don't dry out. These bright colors really make the painting pop. For the main body of our fish, we're going to just use our water colors, and then we can leave it just like that, or we can add a little bit of foil on it later to create a shiny effect. But let's finish painting our painting before we make any decisions. If you find that your paint pedals, you can lift some of it off, or just slightly dab it with a paper. And you can paint your eye. You don't have to paint it the same colors your fins, you can paint it any color you want. I hope that after using your cardboard cutout, that you'll experiment with a few more at home. It's quite a fun and interesting way to make your own templates, and you can reuse them in various projects, as you've seen, we've used them in two art lessons in two art projects today. As you can see, I've made a little mistake, painters run over over the wax to fix something like that, you can just lightly dab it with your paper towel. I'm going to paint my little wm. And I think I'll give him a reddish brown tint. The waxy layer creates a little bit of resist, over here in this section, you can see the lines are very close to one another, and therefore, the paints didn't even go into that gap, and that's fine. I think I'm going to do my fishing line in an olive green. Just slightly over that white. So it's just got a little bit of an olive green touch to it. And my hook. I'll do in a darker brown. Of course, when this dries, it won't be so dark. Just a little bit of a touch of brown. That looks beautiful. I'm going to leave this to dry now, and then I'm going to add a few more details. My painting is mostly dry, and I've decided that once again, I'm going to add a couple of bubbles. I'm going to have moist brush, and I'm going to draw some bubbles in the water just like that, and then lift it off. With my My rag or my paper towel. I'm just continuing to lift it off as I go. This is called the lifting technique in watercolor. That's a bonus little technique that we are learning today. I'm just going to make a few more. And then I lift it. Just a couple of light ones. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It doesn't have to be a solid looking bubble just to create the impression of some bubbles in the water. So this will take a few minutes. I'm going to fast forward this video so that you can do yours. Going to do a couple of bubbles around this fish as well. As you can see, it's not solid. It's just creating a soft bubble, creating the illusion of light as well. Beautiful. If you feel like you need to add more bubbles, you're welcome to do so. I think I'll add a couple here, just general ones. Now for the next part, if you want to do some details on your fins, you are welcome to do that. I'm going to take a darker color. I'm going to mix my purple with a little bit of a darker color and I'm just going to put thin lines into my fins. You can also use a thinner brush for this if you have one, but it's not necessary. Actually, what's nice about this project is you can do the decorations on the fish any way you like. For these, I'm going to be using the same colors I except I'm going to just make them a darker shade. For instance, this red, I'm going to use the red and just add a touch of purple to it to give it a maroon color, and it will create a darker shade so that I can just make these little patterns on the fins and on the tail. Beautiful. I'm also going to add a little bit of the purple to my green over here. Just be careful that you don't rest your hand on the wet paint. To help you rest your finger, you can rest it like that, and then you won't be smudging the paint underneath. Beautifully done. 10. Foil and final words: To add some interest to our fish, I'm going to add some foil. Onto the body of my fish. This is totally optional and up to you. You can cut your foil to make stripes so that you can have stripy fish or spots to make spotty fish, or you can just leave it as it is. If you want to cut out this shape, to get it right, we're going to cut out our templates that we have made. I'm just going to cut out this is my bigger fish. I'm going to just cut out this little body because I'm not going to be using my template again. And I'm going to cut on this round section. And then I'm going to cut my shapes out of that. I'm going to take my middle sized fish and do the same and my smallest sized fish and do the same. You can see they fit on there. If you want to make any changes, you just take your pencil and you make a little adjustment. This is the part of my fish that I'm going to make silver, and I'm going to put these pieces onto my silver foil. I'm just going to take either a pen or a marker something that I can see easily, and I'm going to trace my template once more. Now we're going to cut these out very carefully so that they will fit onto our fish. Ea, I saw that this one was a little bit different. So I'll just leave it like that. Now I'm going to stick these down. I'm not going to use my gut. This is just a normal glut. I'm not going to use the gt on the foil in case it, so I'm just going to lightly on my body. As I said, this step is totally up to you, totally optional. If you want to make your fish with silver stripes, you're welcome to do that. It doesn't have to look like mine. This is turning into a beautiful mixed media pie. If you wanted to, you could even put some silver onto your hook to make it stand out, or you can just leave it as is. I'm happy with this artwork. It's beautiful. It's colorful, it's eye catching. And I had lots of fun creating it. There are lots of different elements to it. We have got wax resist. We have got watercolor, and salt that we've used to use to add texture. We've also used the lifting technique, and we have used a mixed media technique where we add foil to our bodies of our fish. I hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did, your head dryer or heating tool to remove the tape all around your painting. When you remove the tape, you pull it away from your painting so that it doesn't rip the edges. Show you quickly. Please like this project and post your project into the project section so that I can enjoy looking at it as much as you enjoyed painting it. Also, please remember to leave a review so that others can see how fun this class.