Analogous Watercolor Assignment

 

For a quick and easy color theory project, I had my students choose three neighboring colors on the color wheel to make an analogous watercolor painting. Students began by using masking/painter's tape to break up the picture plane into small, medium, and large, shapes. I like it when the strips of paint go off the edges of the paper, but smaller pieces can work too, as long as there is overlap of tape.

blind student uses fingers to navigate what parts of the paper still need painted.

blind student adding value to tape edges

Then the students wet their entire piece of paper with by brushing or spraying water on their watercolor paper. Next, they painted one color at one end, and then overlap a second color blending along the way. It could be two secondary, such as a blue at one end and red at another to make a purple in the middle, or they could use a primary in the middle like a blue with a blue-purple on one side and a green-blue on the other. 

That could be the end of the assignment, but I found everyone was able to take their painting to a next level but tracing their tape with a pencil and smudging it with their finger or gradually adding lighter value to fade it out, to create a shadow once the tape was pealed off.

By continuing to peal off one piece of tape at a time and shading around the intersections, a sense of layers and depth is created. For those with vision, they could even activate the background by creating even more layers. This was done by laying the tape done again in different positions and retracing/blending, and pealing off. What could have been a five minute exercise in mixing two or three colors to create a color harmony, now becomes an interesting composition using not only color, but line, shape, and value! That's a lot of ground being covered for a two day project.