Watercolor Cityscapes
Students can create a bold and colorful sunset/sunrise over a city in this project using oil pastels and watercolor paint. Have students use rulers and create building shapes along the bottom of a their watercolor paper. Buildings tend to look better if at least some of them connect. The paper can be any size watercolor paper, I chose to cut the paper into "panoramic" dimensions because it gave more of a wide angle look to the artwork.
Fill in the building shapes with black oil pastel. Have the students look at reference photos of sunsets/sunrises to better recognize what colors to use. Students are open to experiment with colors and free to mix and create custom "sky" colors.
The students will apply the paint OVER the oil pastel covering the remaining portion of the paper. Demonstrate a "wet-on-wet" technique and have the students create their sunset using this painting approach. The wet-on-wet technique easily allows for the mixing and blending of different colors. (Click HERE to learn more about this technique). By using the oil pastel first, painting on top it, the watercolor will bead off and only paint the paper. This is especially useful because painting a fine edge or in between buildings can be tough, this way, students can essentially paint over everything and still get great results.
Special Notes: Try to have students make straight lines while drawing and coloring in their buildings, reinforce those ruler skills! Also, ensure that students completely color in their buildings with the black oil pastel. Any bit of the paper left exposed will be painted, so a fully colored layer of oil pastel is required to resist the paint.
Supplies: Watercolor paper, pencils, rulers, erasers, oil pastels (black), watercolor paint, brushes, reference, material
Fill in the building shapes with black oil pastel. Have the students look at reference photos of sunsets/sunrises to better recognize what colors to use. Students are open to experiment with colors and free to mix and create custom "sky" colors.
The students will apply the paint OVER the oil pastel covering the remaining portion of the paper. Demonstrate a "wet-on-wet" technique and have the students create their sunset using this painting approach. The wet-on-wet technique easily allows for the mixing and blending of different colors. (Click HERE to learn more about this technique). By using the oil pastel first, painting on top it, the watercolor will bead off and only paint the paper. This is especially useful because painting a fine edge or in between buildings can be tough, this way, students can essentially paint over everything and still get great results.
Special Notes: Try to have students make straight lines while drawing and coloring in their buildings, reinforce those ruler skills! Also, ensure that students completely color in their buildings with the black oil pastel. Any bit of the paper left exposed will be painted, so a fully colored layer of oil pastel is required to resist the paint.
Supplies: Watercolor paper, pencils, rulers, erasers, oil pastels (black), watercolor paint, brushes, reference, material
