“Rainbow, lovely glow

Put some colours in my hand

Together we make a fairy land”

Each week our ‘wet-on-wet watercolour painting’ experience begins as the children sit at the tables, with their damp paper on a board in front of them, and we sing the song above together.  This year painting day is Thursday, enabling most of the group to paint together, while those waiting model with beeswax until it’s their turn to paint.

A verse is spoken, to remind the children how to clean their brushes, first in one jar of water, then the other;

“Dive into my deep, dark well, swim around, swim so well

Dive into my crystal pond, now I may paint with my magic silver wand”

The children listen to a simple story as the teacher begins to gently paint, modelling the use of the brush, cleaning it in the water jars before selecting another colour.  Once the story is told, the assistant gives each child their brush, and they begin painting too.

The colours are introduced slowly during the course of the year, allowing the children to experience the purity and special qualities of each one, beginning with yellow in the warmer months, moving to red, then a combination of the two to create orange.  In winter blue is introduced, then red added again so the children can discover purple.  Later the children experience blue and yellow creating green, before all three primary colours are used together.  Only the three primary colours are offered in kindergarten, allowing the children to discover the secondary colours for themselves.  How wonderful to discover that when red and yellow dance together, they create orange!

The mobility of the water on a damp page enables the children to experience the purity of moving colours, unhampered by the restrictions of form.  Children are asked to paint without speaking to each other so they can “hear what the colours want to say”; to be fully immersed in the experience, and just enjoy the movement of the colours on the paper, without any pressure to “produce” a picture or form.

Watercolours also allow the children to experience light radiating through the colour (rather than light reflected from colour as they would with opaque tempera paints).  Stockmar watercolour paints are used, they are made from natural pigments, and are a high-quality art material, along with the paper and brushes we utilise.  This provides for a truly artistic experience for the children.

Once the whole page has been transformed into colour, the painting boards are placed into the drying rack, and the children help to put away the paints, brushes and jars.  At the end of each term the children receive their paintings carefully rolled up, which might later be put to use in crafts or wrapping gifts.