Warm and Cool Woven Watercolours

This is a simple but beautiful watercolour weaving lesson that I found here on the School Specialty website. It's similar to the lesson I did here, but now we used coarse salt instead of rice for the patterns.  And, instead of random colours, I had students paint one sheet with cool colours and the other with warm colours.  I love weaving projects, but I really need to progress onto some yarn weaving....

So start by painting two sheets of heavy white paper: I demonstrated the wet-in-wet technique.  Wet the paper first with lots of water, then drop the paint on. We used tempera discs, but watercolours or inks would be super nice.  Let the colours mingle and encourage students to paint loose and free. There needs to be quite a bit of water for the salt part to work...

Then sprinkle on coarse/Kosher salt. 

It will 'soak' up the paint colour and create cool patterns. 

NOTE: This effect works best on watercolour paper. I used cheapo heavy paper for this project and the patterns didn't show up that well.

Paint one sheet with warm colours and the other with cool colours.  Let dry flat overnight.



Cool colours: blues, violets, greens



Here's a detail of the patterns the salt makes.

 Ok, once the paper is dry, wipe off the salt. Take one sheet and fold it in half vertically. Draw about a 5cm line across the top that you don't cut through. Cut strips up to the line- the thinner you cut them, the longer the weaving process will take. These strips are called the warp strips.

Then cut the other sheet across-ways into strips. These are called weft strips. You can measure them if you want them perfectly straight, or just freestyle. You can also cut them different thicknesses for variety and interest. You can also cut wavy lines. Just keep the strips in order.

Weave the cut strips (weft) through the other sheet (warp)- over, under, over under. 

Alternate the opposite with the next row. I find it's easier if you weave the strips in the middle of the paper and then gently  push them up to the top, nice and snug. Once you have a few strips in place and it looks good, glue down the ends of each strip with a dot of white glue to keep it all together.

Once the weaving is complete (my Grade 7's wizzed through this step- they were master weavers!!) coat the back side with white glue- this helps keep it all solid and held together.

Ta da!