Using watercolor for a preschool art activity is fun because there is such a variety of ways to apply it, such as when we made our colorful tissue paper leaves. Preschoolers love working with watercolors because the water allows the colors to bleed together, creating new colors. When purchasing watercolors, you can use a moist palette or those that are already in the liquid form. The moist palette watercolors are easy to set up quickly and you can have quite an assortment of colors available at once. Clean up is a breeze, too, because you just snap the lid on when done. Liquid watercolors are lovely because you can alter how deep you want the colors. They also work better on larger materials because you can use a wider brush. We loved using liquid watercolors on an outdoor canvas project. Another plus to watercolors is that we can use them with our toddlers and preschoolers.
For this particular activity, we used paper doilies on a vertical surface, like we did when we made our colorful waterfalls. The doilies are a bit delicate, perfect for light watercolors. When finished, we realized how lovely they would look strung across the classroom. A simple, fun art activity!
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What you will need:
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Acrylic page holders for the easels
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Any type of paper doily
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Watercolors
Setting it up:
Using some sort of clip (we used a clothespin), attach the doily to the easel. We placed ours on a tray to catch any drips. Provide the watercolors, water, and a brush.
The process:
Like much of our art activities, the children were drawn to the art table immediately. We had 6 personal easels set up, and they were all taken for quite awhile. Typical for this age, some of the children worked quickly, applying just a few strokes of color, while others spent a great deal of time working on them, often asking for a second doily.
Displaying in the classroom:
Once these were dry, we realized how nice they’d look hanging from the ceiling in our classroom.
The children loved it, too. They kept pointing up and saying, “I painted that one!”
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Art resources:
