Quick Pick & Project of the Week: Commotion in the Ocean Watercolor And Cray Pas Painting

We must have summer on the brain with the nice weather we've had a taste of these past few days because we got excited to think about the ocean. This week's Quick Pick & Project is based on the book Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae.

I absolutely love using cray pas and watercolors as a medium with kids. The cray pas make crisp, colorful lines and the watercolors fill in between the lines. The final pieces are always really vivid. I've used it a lot in the classroom with students.

I especially enjoy using it with kids as a medium for painting underwater scenes as the watercolors give a "watery" look and easily fill a whole page with color. 

Yet somehow we had never tried this at home yet. Our cray pas set is a little old, another yard sale find, but it still had enough color range for this project. (I am adding this set on Amazon to our wish list for future projects.) We started our project using a watercolor set, but eventually used turquoise liquid watercolor to add a bolder color to our picture. 

The book is a collection of poems written in rhyme about different ocean animals. The rhymes are fun and catchy, and helped us think about all the different animals we might include in our painting. 

After reading I introduced the cray pas to Big Brother and he explored drawing different creatures. They work like a crayon, but flow a little smoother. He drew seaweed, fish, a jellyfish, an octopus, treasure chest, and sand. 

When he finished drawing the creatures I gave him the watercolors. I showed him how even if you painted over the cray pas lines, you could still see them. He worked on filling in the whole paper with the water colors. 

Our final project looked like this when it dried:

Have you used this art method before? What does it inspire you to paint or create?