painting cloudscapes

The children in my class love to paint and we always have paint and paper on the easel ready for them. When we set up tabletop provocations we use a better quality paper primed for whichever type of paint we are going to use. When using watercolors I use watercolor paper that has been trimmed of perforations if needed. For our cloudscapes, the children drew their clouds with fat white crayons and then painted with a variety of blues and greys which had been watered down at different levels. Some of the children drew fat circles for their clouds while others scribbled circles across their paper. We had a selection of cloud photos on the table for inspiration. When using watercolors with the children we carefully explain the importance if treating the paintbrush and paper gently as well as keeping the rinse water clean so as not to muddy the colors. When the children want to do color mixing we switch out the paintbrushes and paper  and sometimes even the paint though eyedroppers make for great tools on color mixing watercolors!