This lesson incorporates line drawing and value. Our inspiration came from the children's book illustrator, Catherine Rayner, who creates magical watercolor illustrations of animals.
Get to know the artist and her work here.
We looked at the rabbit in her book Bernard's Ears. We only used dirty, neutral colors, which we mixed ourselves in our pallets. These 'dirty' colors can often be found on the mixing side of our palettes, left over from previous use. We used plenty of dirty water too! We got some lovely browns, grays and all the VALUES in between.
To begin we had a quick lesson in watercolor techniques (wet on wet, creating sharp lines, pulling and blending color, keeping paint translucent, leaving white spaces, starting light and going darker, using dirty water as a light value). Then we began our rabbit drawing by looking closely at Rayner's illustration and breaking down her lines and shapes. Next we started painting by utilizing the watercolor techniques we had learned. These turned out amazing!
Watercolor is tricky, but well worth the effort. Even my youngest artists (aged 4) can have success with this project, because the drawing the painting style is loose and expressive. I am SO proud of these bunnies!
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| Catherine Rayner original illustration |
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| Using the 'dirty' colors from our palette |
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| Teacher Sample |
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| Kids 4-6 (with teacher sample) |
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| Kids 7-9 |
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| Kids 7-11 |