Watercolor Butterflies

Watercolors may seem kind of scary for preschoolers to work wtih, especially if you're anything like me.  I had visions of the yellow being covered in brown, green and purple.  Even now I cringe at the thought!!  But once I finally got up the courage to try it with E, things went okay!  (Of course, I did have to buy my OWN watercolors, just in case the above tragedy actually occurred!)  The one thing I will say is to make sure you buy watercolor paper.  Construction paper just doesn't cut it, and will leave both of you frustrated with a soggy mess!  And yes, the yellow will get some other colors of paint on it.  I let it dry just a bit and wiped it off with a rag when we were done.

I showed E how to wash her brush out after each color, and how to mix the color with water to make the paint.  I did have to remind her several times to "paint then rinse."  She loved painting her butterfly, and the free form watercolors we did were a favorite as well.  Using a larger brush also helped.

These butterflies are from ideasforkids.org.  I saw this balancing butterflies project over at Childhood Magic.  E and K were so excited when they came into the kitchen this morning to find the butterflies they had painted would rest on their hand or shoulder!!

I am also interested in trying wet on wet watercolor painting with E.  Sounds like fun, especially since she loves to "do art" so much!