Kids Art: Drawing Sea Horses

I just did this art project with my little K-2nd grade art class and and was so pleased with the results that I thought it was worth sharing.....(I am now doing it with my 3rd - 5th Graders...I did say I liked it)!  :)

Anyway...after a discussion on warm and cool colors I got out the water colors and told them to paint cool colors on their background paper....letting the colors melt and blend together and making sure the paper was good and wet with no white showing.

Now here comes the fun part...while the paper was still very wet we sprinkled it with salt...as the salt crystal absorb the water they leave a really cool pattern on the paper (This works really great for winter scenes too)!  This technique shows up well on the above two paintings.

Directed draw for a seahorse

I then had them draw the Sea Horse on a separate piece of water color paper.  I like to break down animals into simple shapes that make it very easy for the kids to copy....my diagram shows how I did this....I also use very simple terms...like for #1 or the horses jaw I told them to make a smile....I draw along on the white board putting each shape up as I'm explaining how and where to place each one (side ways smile, frown, strait line ect..)...So I am drawing the same picture as they are.

When they were done drawing I gave them the choice of oil pastels or crayons to color in their  Seahorse ....Then they carefully cut them out......When they were done with that I had them cut Sea Grass out of green paper.

The last thing to do was place the sea grass and the horses on the background paper and glue them down...

Ta-Da.....a FABULOUS picture...good enough to frame and hang on the wall!! 

(All these wonderful Seahorses were created by my little students) 

Now go out there and teach those little kiddos to draw!!  ;)

It's time well spent!!

But....

Before you go...Check out these great projects...

Thanks for visiting!

Denise