Nighttime Water Reflection-Crayon Resist

This is an advanced crayon resist NightCityScape Reflection assignment (take  a breath) 

that I plan on doing with my kids someday. 

It may be a little too technical, but I had fun doing it myself. 

It could be busted into half a painting just focusing on the crayon resist method of the night lights and overlapping of the city to show visual perspective. 

The reflection piece could be left out. 

First I drew an overlapping city on a hill. 

Draw in pencil, outline in Sharpie.

This could be linked by talking about Grandma Moses or Grant Wood and how they showed their towns and life as they knew it. Both of them have similar paintings of towns shrinking in the distance. 

If reflection portion of assignment is desired, 

choose something to float or sit in the water 

(frog on a lily pad, beaver and dam, platypus peeking out, or anything desired). 

I chose ducks sleeping. 

(I am also doing a day version of this currently and the ducks are awake. 

I will post this later.)

Draw in pencil, outline in Sharpie.

Fold under the object in water and trace with and trace the reflection of object in pencil. 

After the floating image is traced, then trace the image of the city on the hill to paper with water reflection, avoiding tracing city in any part of the floating object. 

Use construction paper crayons to color windows in with white and yellow. Some brighter colors can be added to night signs as well for pizzazz. 

Inspired by VanGOgh's Starry Night as well, 

I added radiating contour lines around all the lights in the sky. 

I then lightly shaded in all of the city life with Crayola Watercolor Pencils 

(right on top of the crayon, it will resist the color).

I only used cool and dark colors (black for buildings, purple for sky, and some green for trees with black mixed in). 

I used a blue sharpie to outline the reflection in the water. 

Then I used the crayons in the reflections of the windows in the water as well. 

I shaded the ducks in with black and went heavier on the darker crevices. 

I washed over the black watercolor, then later came back with colored pencils to add in some color to ducks.

I then used the brush and water to go over the entire picture with a wash being careful not to mix the sky color with the buildings. 

Here is a slightly less tedious lesson for another reflection done as the daytime...

The beginning drawing and tracing is basically started the same. 

This is not a crayon resist. 

The top city is traced with Sharpie and watercolored. I did add some emphasis after the watercolor using colored pencils to deepen the shades and make it "pop". 

For the reflection, I also watercolored it the same as above, but instead of tracing it with Sharpie, I used the colored pencils to give the edges of the buildings in the reflection a little sharpness, without the harsh black.

I then added horizontal sharpie lines to the water to make it appear slightly rippled. 

I was inspired by the artist Kathy Hovart before doing this assignment...

You may want to look her up. She is amazing!

Here is the altered lesson i tried with my kids 7th grade, leaving out the reflection aspect...

To see a simpler reflection method I do with 6th graders, 

visit my school site here...

http://classroom.mineolaisd.net/default.aspx?Mrs. Tabitha Seaton/Water Reflection Resist

Teaching a Kindergardener to Draw Forms

My 5 year old daughter was sitting around bored last night and told me she wanted to draw with me. She wanted me to draw a picture of a table and chairs. Then she wanted to fill in all the details. As I stared drawing the table, I showed her how to draw the top 3 dimensional. She seemed interested and understood the concept. So, I flipped the paper over to the back and showed her how to draw a cube and a cylinder. I explained a foreshortened circle (squashed circle) to her. I showed her a plate and held it to her face so it was a circle. I slowly moved it to an angle and we talked about what happened to the circle. 

I was really proud of her interest and understanding. 

This is the back of the paper where we practiced drawing cubes and cylinders. I even showed her how to add water to her cups. 

After I added the table and chairs, she added all of the details. 

She made the light and the glasses using foreshortened circles. 

She used a cube to make the flower pot on the floor. She even added a door using overlapping techniques. I was so happy with the results. Being an art teacher definitely doesn't stop at school!

My daughter rocks my socks!

This is an early coloring that she did of one of my drawings (see below). 

This was colored at about three years old.

Usually when she sees me working, she thinks she has to work as well. 

I made her a copy to mine to color. 

Maisy painting in my classroom.

She has take a liking to drawing on our Paint program at home.

She likes to add extra three dimensional elements to her drawings (pom poms, rhinstones). 

She wanted to paint Van Gogh's Sunflowers...

Maisy's Sunflowers

She was inspired by a scrap of fabric in the trash. 

It ended up being Starry Night. 

4 years old.