Warm & Cool Colors Handprint Pattern Watercolor & Crayon Resist Painting

2nd-5th Grade Art Handprint Pattern (Rhythm) Crayon & Watercolor Resist

Teaching the principles of art to elementary students can sometimes be a challenge, especially the younger students. Coupling the lesson with examples of rhythm in music and rhythm in poetry helps make audible connections to the concept. So when presenting a lesson on pattern, repetition, and rhythm find good music & poetry examples to begin the lesson with. I had them practice making patterns. We also learned about warm and cool colors in this lesson.

Who doesn’t love watching the “magic” happen when you paint watercolors over crayons! I LOVE it-

Watercolor and crayon resist paintings are among my favorite art projects! It is also a good cross-curriculum lesson with Science and Art. Oil & water don’t mix and we see a perfect visual example of this when we paint watercolors over the crayons. This is a fun mixed-media lesson!!

Supplies: pencils, 12×18″ Tagboard, crayons or oil pastels (in warm colors), Watercolor paints, brushes, Optional: Basic Watercolor Techniques Lesson & Worksheet, Color Wheel Worksheet or Warm & Cool colors Worksheet

Warm & Cool Color Worksheet
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Instructions:

Have children trace their hands 5-7 times in pencil on a sheet of 12×18″ tag-board or watercolor paper. Younger kids may need help, I encouraged them to do it on their own, but if they really needed help then they could ask their partner to draw only one or two hands.
Outline Hands 5-7 times on a 12×18″ piece of tag-board
Students trace all their hands in different warm colored crayons (red, orange, yellow & intermediate colors too). Make sure they are drawing THICK lines-this helps in the resist process.
Next, draw patterns using only warm colored crayons. Encourage them to make a new pattern in each hand.
Draw different patterns in each hand using WARM colors.

Handprint with Warm Color Pattern

There are many options to the next part. I am including pictures of samples I have made experimenting with different backgrounds. The important part is to incorporate the COOL colors into the background somehow. Cool colors are green, blue, & purple (with their intermediate colors). The black background is India Ink.