Watercolors are one of the first paints that kids are given to try. I mean no one is handing a toddler oil paints right? But with our easy watercolor Bible art lessons for kids you can encourage any child’s God given creativity with a less messy art medium of watercolors.
One of our favorite things about watercolors is the effect they create in an artwork. They can be delicate or bold depending on the amount of water that is used to dilute the color.
But how can watercolors remind us of Christ? So many ways. Read why we love using Art to teach the Bible and Bible to teach Art for more ways to use your God given creativity.
Let’s talk about watercolor art below. *Post contains affiliate links.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, watercolors are:
a paint of which the liquid is a water dispersion of the binding material such as glue, casein or gum.
That’s a little wordy right?
Watercolors are pigment that are activated with water.
You probably remember them in the oval pan sets we were given as kids such as Crayola. They come with a cheap stiff brush with a plastic handle.
Maybe as a kid you remember having a cup of water and adding the water to the pans….. and then coloring your water because more paint went in the water than on paper!
Yeah, us too.
But watercolors can come in other forms such as more concentrated pigment pans, sticks, crayons, pencils, powder, tubes and liquid forms. The liquid watercolors are our favorite paints to use for ourselves and our classes. They are vibrant and bold colors that you can use straight out of the bottle or you can dilute them with water and even mix the colors. This allows you endless possibilities in your art.
Watercolors have been used since ancient times in manuscripts and Egyptian art. Many artists have dabbled in watercolors and created amazing works of art.
Every watercolorists experiments and pushes the paint to see what it can do. So there are many techniques to learn if you are beginning to try them.
Watercolor effects can look different in artworks depending on the paper used. Cold press has texture and hot pressed is smoother in finish. But we have also used watercolor paint on cotton shoes, cotton tea towels, wood objects, plaster, walls and even furniture.
So don’t limit your creativity to just paper!
Come to think of it, don’t limit yourself to just using watercolors on your artwork!
Because watercolors are water based, just about every art supply imaginable can be used on top of them. Believe us when we say we’ve tried lots of fun supplies to see what happens.
● Outline or add details with Sharpie Markers, or alcohol based pens.
● Create depth and layers of details with colored pencils or even watercolor pencils.
● Layer with mixed media. You’ve really got to try them!
● Did you know you can cause Scientific reactions in watercolors by adding alcohol or salt? The rubbing alcohol will push the color or disperse it leaving little rings of color while the salt will absorb or pull away the pigment leaving behind little white moments.
● It is best to tape the edges of your paper down to a surface because when it is wet, it tends to curl.
● Speaking of Scientific reactions, we should mention that most of the time watercolors will NOT paint over other mediums such as an oil or alcohol based art supplies.
● They do however react in a very cool way with wax crayons! We love to create artwork using a wax crayon and watercolor resist. You see the wax resists the watercolor leaving the crayon pigment no mater what watercolor you paint on top of it.
Here’s a couple of our Bible Art lessons as examples.
This is a hard question to answer without having some details such as age and desired effect.
For toddlers and young learners, we’d recommend the Crayola pan sets, but with a better brush!
Just remember the white in the pan sets does not really paint the color white even though it is included in the set. The white is better used as a mixing pigment to create milky colors or pastels.
Kids will get a decent amount of pigment that will satisfy their creative hearts.
For those looking to adventure a little more into watercolors, we love love love the liquid pigments. We cannot talk about them enough! The colors are vibrant right out of the bottle and diluting them with water creates wonderful effects.
There is not a good white in these options as we mentioned above. For this we will use a white acrylic paint and dilute it with water when we forget to leave an area blank for white or when we need to add white details.
Sometimes we have found the blacks in all the sets and liquids tend to be either green based, blue based or purple based rather than a deep dark black.
But it doesn’t keep us from playing with them in our Watercolor Bible Art lessons for kids.
We are always working on ways to teach Art using the Bible and Bible using Art. In our Bible Art lessons, we look for Bible connections to an art medium, technique, style or even an artwork.
After all, Art has been used for many years to tell the story of Christ and what He has done for His people.
But you can also find many Bible verses we have used on our YouTube Channel with watercolor art projects. We have painted watercolor landscapes, animals, flowers and botanicals.
Well that’s another tough question.
If you are looking to paint a watercolor like the professionals who have studied or been practicing for years, then yes it will be hard. (smile)
But if you don’t mind playing with the watercolors, practice makes progress!
We’d say it’s one of the easiest mediums to play with and see instant results.
We work hard to create simple and easy watercolor art lessons for kids of all ages. Art shouldn’t be hard or complicated, you know!
You have God given creativity to explore and find ways to express yourself. Why not give watercolors a try!
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Discover how we love combining 2 of our favorites to teach Art using the Bible and Bible using Art. This post is filled with how creativity is a God given gift we all have and can use to glorify Him in many ways.
