Salt Watercolor Koi Fish - 3d Grade

 

I needed a quick project for the end of the year for my third grades.  I saw this lesson for a Koi Fish watercolor on Art Projects For Kids.  (I tried to set up a direct link to the exact page for the lesson but the link won't work.  Go to Art Projects for Kids and type in Koi Fish into the search bar for her site.  It will pop right up.)

I went through the steps with my third graders on how to sketch the Koi Fish "Bird's Eye" view.  They outlined them with Sharpie marker and colored them with crayon.  The following week they painted the water with watercolor and sprinkled salt on top for really cool effects.  Salt watercolor is always a hit!  Quick & Easy!  I let them choose any color for their water since we are on the very last of our watercolors.  One small tip:  If you are going to salt watercolor, don't pick the week when the weather is ungodly hot and humid.  Any salt that falls onto the floor or anywhere else melts from the humidity leaving what looks like little water droplets all over the art room.  As soon as the kids steps on them they track it throughout the room and leave a greasy, slippery mess everywhere!  The kids of course thought it was cool when they realized how easy it made it to slide on the floor!  It was disgusting!  No one cleaned my room that night and the next morning when I entered the room, it was worse!  Had to get the day Custodian to come up and quickly mop the floor!  Of course nothing was drying because of the humidity, so I laid out pathways all over the room with newspaper so the kids didn't break thier necks!  Here are some pictures I snapped quickly before they took them home.  Enjoy!  :)