3rd Grade Seahorses

A favorite art lesson in 3rd grade is warm and cool color seahorses, based on artwork in Eric Carle's book Mr. Seahorse. This year, by the time we got to this project, most of my watercolor pans were out of blue! I always order more Prang refills of blue than any other color, but last year's order wasn't enough. I've ordered more, but until they come, I've been giving the students a cup of liquid blue watercolors to go with their paint set. For the seahorse assignment, I gave the students two kinds of blue; turquoise and regular blue. The vivid colors from Blick liquid watercolors really made the paintings stand out, and heightened the contrast between warm and cool colors (the main concept learned from the project). I am so pleased with these vivid colors, I plan to continue using Blick liquid watercolors for this lesson! Here are paintings from two years ago, so you can compare.