In October of 2019 I was finally afforded an opportunity to teach a watercolor class at the Senior Center in Tacoma.
Our focus was on various resist techniques including salt painting. Also available:
(1) contact paper circles for preserving the white space for a full moon in our paintings;
(2) white crayons and oil pastels; and (3) saran wrap.
Some of my students were able to complete more than one painting in the time allotted.
Some chose more abstract landscapes experimenting with the salt along with the moon shape. The resulting textures achieved are difficult to show in these pictures.
One budding artist chose this Impressionistic rendition of flowers, possibly inspired by another watercolor painting hanging conveniently on the wall behind her. Again, it is difficult to see the effect of the salt that was applied to the wet paint.
My laptop was updating for most of the session, otherwise, I would have shown more examples of using white crayons and oil pastels.
The examples were supposed to be inspired by Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Besides learning watercolor techniques, I wanted to teach about the concepts of movement and repetition.
I was suggesting a white moon, warm or cool colors for the sky, and creepy looking black trees. I actually have some great watercolor brush tip pens that would have been great for the trees. For elementary school age children you can do this project in two steps -- first the painting, then second gluing on strip of black construction paper for the tree trunk and branches.
I enjoyed the tenacity of the students who went above and beyond the example and made the artworks their own. They didn't paint only one tree and a moonlit sky but actually achieved texture in their foregrounds and backgrounds by using salt to accentuate grass, dirt, and foliage.
Unfortunately, I missed a chance to photograph this layered landscape (left) sans the contact paper circle (moon). The work (below) was done by my quilter.
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