Warm/Cool Watercolour Grid

This is a watercolour project I recently taught to a Grade 8 class.  It is useful for reviewing warm and cool colours as well as for learning how to use watercolours in a controlled way.  Here's how we made these:

First, students measured a grid onto their white paper- I think I encouraged a 3cm size square, but to accomodate students who need more help, they can use a larger size.  Some students chose to go smaller. So measure out the lines with a ruler in one direction....

Then the same size in the other direction and you have a nice grid.

Draw a design on top- I encouraged fairly simple shapes (or a shape) that filled the paper nicely.

This student chose more than one shape.

Then, using watercolours, students needed to decide on either warm or cool colours for the background and then the opposite for the shape(s).  Colours need to be transparent, so add lots of water when you mix them.  Move around the paper- don't work on squares side-by-side as you run the risk of having colours 'bleed' into each other.

For the watercolour brands, I use two types to get an even wider variety of colours: Prang and the Russian brand Yarka (student grade).  I prefer the Prang brand, though, and they are much cheaper.

Here are some of the results: Ta da!

This student chose a methodical pattern of colours.