DrawAble: Exploring ThroughWatercolour by Emma BurleighPart Two

By Emma Burleigh

Emma is an artist, writer and teacher with apassion for watercolour and the way it links tomental and spiritual wellbeing. As part of theDrawAble series of resources for learning at homeor school, Emma encourages young learners to usewatercolour in a loose and intuitive way to helpthem discover the stories within their mark-making.

Notes for teachers

What is the aim of this exercise?

This resource encourages children andteenagers to paint intuitively and mindfully.The activity encourages developing new waysof looking at watercolour, and observe thestories that emerge from painting.

What age can this exercise be used with?

This resource is suitable for participantsaged 6+ and can be easily adapted for older

children, teenagers or even adults.

How long does this exercise take?

This exercise will take between 30 minutesand 2 hours. Children may become engrossed inthe activity and continue experimenting tocreate more complex paintings.

How do I measure success?

Success will be measured by the children’sengagement and interest, and their ability tolink paintings with stories/narratives.

More able or engaged children may become moreadventurous with the way they usewatercolour; they may produce a variety oflines and make their paintings more detailed.

Encourage children to look at their paintingsfrom different angles. Help them askquestions about their paintings, and supportdecision-making about which stories theywould like to emerge from their paintings.

What can we try after this exercise?

Move on to Part Three of this project

Exploring Watercolour at the FitzwilliamMuseum: an introduction to watercolour andexploring watercolour in the studio

Watercolour Washes Inspired by the Tapestriesof Henry Moore combines watercolour withmixed media

In Journeys, use washes of colour and mixedmedia to create a memory of a journey

Try exploring Emma’s techniques in othermedia like ink or diluted acrylic in HedgerowArt by Sara Dudman

Painting the Storm at Bourne PrimaryAcademy is a weather-inspired exploration ofwatercolour and graphite

Drawing, watercolour and collage are combinedin Seasonal Drawings: Observation,Composition and Colour

Explore gouache, an opaque form ofwatercolour, in this step by step resourcePainting a Still Life and Seeing Colour

Giving Your Sketchbook Legs, and EnjoyingTime to Reflect invites you to use yoursketchbook to play and explore colour

Extend skills by making drawing tools andthen drawing with ink or watercolour inTeachers Make Mark Making Tools and ‘Battleit Out’ with Ink

Drawing for mindfulness is explored inDrawing as a Tool for Wellbeing at ChestertonCommunity College, Cambridge

A collection of workshops led by SheilaCeccarelli of AccessArt for the arts andmental health charity Arts and Minds: 'HeartWork' An Arts and Wellbeing Project for YoungPeople

Find projects adaptable for all ages toenable students to understand the scope oftheir creative potential in CreativeEntitlement and Wellbeing

Other resources exploringwatercolour and mixed media painting andarts and wellbeing

You may want to try other watercolourresources by Emma Burleigh.

Try other DrawAble exercises and projects.

Which artists might we look at?

You may want to look at classic andcontemporary painters:

J.M.W.Turner - sketchbooks, drawings andwatercolours

Cezanne combines watercolour and graphite tocreate 'an impression of solid forms anddense, dreamlike space'.

An exhibition of the watercolours of JohnSinger Sargent

The dream like pictures of Marc Chagall

The watercolours of Georgia O’Keefe

Emma Larsson takes inspiration from naturefor her organic forms

Chris Ofili creates small watercolourportraits as a daily warm up exercise and amindful activity

Arthur Kvarnstrom paints visual poems: ‘haikuin paint’

Claire Denny combines watercolour and mixedmedia

Yellena James inspires with florals in mixedmedia

The Royal Watercolour Society is a showcase‘for some of the finest practitioners incontemporary water-based painting. Ourartists work in a variety of media includinggouache, acrylic, pen & ink, pigment,collage, mixed media as well as traditionalwatercolour‘.

You may also want to look at Emma’s other artand projects.

Exploring Through Watercolour Part One

Exploring Through Watercolour Part Three

Introduction

Hi there, I'm Emma, a watercolour artist. One ofmy favourite ways to create art is to paint withno particular plan in mind. I like just lettingthe watercolour do its own thing. Often it doesthings that are much more interesting than I couldhave thought up by myself. So sometimes I justbegin a painting with a feeling, then I choosecolours that feel right for that feeling and justplay.

Choosing colours for your painting

I wonder what colours you feel like using today?See if you can find two or three colours youparticularly feel like choosing right now.

Have you chosen? Good! I've chosen red, blue, andyellow.

Now I'm going to play with these colours and seeif a picture starts to emerge. I don't know whatthat picture is going to be - that's what makes itall so fun and exciting! I'll begin by justpainting some stripes onto the paper.

The "wet in wet" technique

Now, I feel like working wetter. So I'm going touse my favourite technique, which is called "wetin wet".

First of all, I make the paper wet, using justwater. I paint a wet shape on a part of the paper.I get some paint on my brush and I touch for wetpaper with the brush. See how it spreads. I couldadd more colours in there now. What happens if Iadd two or even three colours into one wet area?

I can explore what happens if I move the paintaround a bit, I can pick up my paper and let itrun in one direction. The one thing I'm not doingis brushing the paint around, because then I mightlose all these lovely effects that are happening.Now, I might feel like adding some splatters, orusing the wrong end of my paintbrush to make someskinny lines.

Finally, I'm going to use a piece of kitchen rollto blot up a few areas - either because they'revery wet or just because I feel like making themlighter. You try it too!

Now we need to let the paint dry. That might takea few minutes or half an hour. It depends whereyou live and whether it's a hot, dry day or a wet,damp day. If you want to speed things up a bit,you could use a hairdryer, just dry the paintingas if you were drying your hair.

Seeing a story in your painting

Is your painting dry? Good! Now we're going to see

if any picture is emerging. This is how I makequite a lot of my paintings. I start by justplaying and exploring. And then when it's drained,I decide what it is. Try looking at your paintingupside down and from different sides. And just seeif you start to see anything. Do you see a face ora person, or an animal, or a monster, or a flower,or a lake, or a castle, or a robot, or somethingelse?

If you do see something, you could use somewatercolour to pick out what you see. Make surethere's not too much water on your brush and don'tmake the paper wet this time, because you'retrying to be more detailed. You need to use thepaint more crisply. Use a small brush. If you've

got one, and see if he can add a few lines orshapes to make it clearer to everybody else whatit is that you're seeing in the painting.

It can also be interesting to ask yourself: what'sthe mood or the atmosphere of this painting? Hasit got a stormy feel, or is it peaceful? Does itfeel sad or funny? What's the feeling? Maybe ifyou don't see anything in particular, you couldkeep your painting abstract. But if, for example,you see a stormy sea, perhaps you could put alittle boat in the waves to enhance that sense ofstorminess.

Have a go at creating your own painting - and seewhat stories emerge from it!

Exploring Through Watercolour Part One

Exploring Through Watercolour Part Three

Let Me Inspire You by Emma Burleigh

This is a sample of a resource created byUK Charity AccessArt. We have over 1100

resources to help develop and inspireyour creative thinking, practice andteaching.

AccessArt welcomes artists, educators,teachers and parents both in the UK andoverseas.

We believe everyone has the right to becreative and by working together andsharing ideas we can enable everyone toreach their creative potential.