Watercolor Landscapes & Blotter Butterflies

To finish our Blotter Butterfly project, students created landscape paintings using watercolor paint.  We talked about where butterflies like to live, what they like to eat, and so on - just to refresh their memory from the video we watched last class period. 

To begin this project, I had to re-teach the techniques of using watercolors ~ sigh.  I had to bring out the brand-new Prang paints :)  they were so beautiful!  Let me emphasize 'were' so beautiful.  We had to go over all the basics...water the brush, then choose one color to dab the brush in, wash the brush out each time, do not dig the brush into the color or scoop the paint out. 

I also had a slideshow going on the TV depicting various landscape photographs so students could get an idea about horizon line, composition, color schemes, and so on.