I taught grade four students in the afternoon.  I guided them through some free form water colour pieces, but first, encouraged them to complete four studies of the heron in order to understand proportions.

I shared some of my recent photographs of the heron that’s been hanging out, fishing, at Frank’s Flats.

The students folded a piece of paper into four to use for their practice drawings.  This gave them the idea of how tall their herons needed to be…head touching the top, feet touching the bottom.  We used a very contrived series of steps, but step by step instructions are sometimes super helpful, especially when learning the basic structures of an animal or bird.  I used this one and projected it on the smart board.

To learn something of the water colour process, I did a demonstration and we used their favourite LARGE heron sketch and applied the water colour to the sketch.  I discovered that the most difficult two things about drawing a heron were, how to make it large enough and how to create that ‘S’ movement in the neck.  The final water colour painting was done on transparent paper that was placed on top of their coloured sketch and rendered with no use of pencil.

We watched a couple of Youtube videos where WC techniques were explored in a minimalist approach.

And so…from there, this is what we used.  By the way, reuse those Lunchable snack trays for palettes.  I found those tucked in the storage room.  Also the students need pencil for their depictions, a variety of water colour brushes (soft bristle) a small squeeze of payne’s grey, blue, and later, yellow to be mixed with both for the bull rushes, a yogurt container with a small bit of water in it.  That should do.  Remember that if you don’t have a sink in your classroom, ask the caretaker to give you a wash bucket half filled with water.  Works great.

Thanks, Jess, for your class.