The kids were going to use their softly blended paintings as part of their clouds in the next project... so I suggested that they think of the sky when they were working.
Q: Green is in a tornado…Sometimes the sky is green.
L: The reason I’m using green is because green is in a sunset.
Q: No it isn’t.
Q: The colours get mixed up with the other colours.
L: They look pretty. Do you know anacondas don’t poison their prey, they squeeze them to death?
Rachel: What made you think of that?
L: Don’t know. The paint. Squiggle squiggle….I’m splattering on mine!
L picks up her picture to let the watery pain drip off.
L: Rain, rain.
Q: Now no colours! Lainey just has pink.
J talked quietly as she worked with the water colours.
J: It’s just neat designs. The paint is spreading out. When they go together, one kind disappears… making new colours. I like the light blue the best. It looks like one of my heating pads when the colours go around.
On J’s next paper, she began without first spraying it with water. She instantly saw that the paint beaded, rather than swirl and blend like on the wet paper. She kept trying more squirts of paint, but knew something was different. I asked her if she knew why it was doing that. “I’m not sure. Oh! I forgot the water!” She put the puzzle together herself, and after she sprayed some on, added, “That’s perfect.”
H and M discovering the dropper tool:
H: This is like a missile. On your marks, get ready, fire!!!....
Hey look what I did, it’s a magic technique.
M: Ah, exactly 10 ml.
H: Hey look at this. Drip drip, drippity drip. These things are handy.
M watching colours bleed and blend:
M: Looks like a pile of smoke. Can I try on a dry piece of paper? It doesn’t slide around as much.