Art History-Paul Klee

In the Art History posts we will try to create masterpieces using different art techniques sometime similar to the ones that the artist used himself.  We love art and in case you missed our previous collections you can find them here.

Personally I believe that it is never too early to teach kids about art, art techniques or doodling.  If all fails at least your children will be able to identify mayor art works and their authors.

So today we are tackling Paul Klee and to be more specific his fish.  Paul Klee was a Swiss German painter that experimented with color theory and eventually wrote about them in Paul Klee Notebooks, a book that became one of the most influential books in modern art. Color theory is an art of mixing colors to achieve the best visual impact in other words how to make your browns, greens and oranges like you want them to or to make them pop.

Like WOW:

Isn’t this cool.  I just love this painting and have used a fun technique to recreate a similar effect.  Of course I am not an artist, far far far from it and I do not think my 2.5 year olds qualify as such either so please bear with us.  For this art you will need:

-wax crayons

-watercolor paper, thick- do not use thin one or it will buckle and you will have to do it again, I know this from not so distant experience

-watercolor paints, preferably black and blue

-pencil

Draw an outline of your fish on the paper with a pencil

add squiggles for waves, flowers, seaweed

Color your fish with as much crayon as possible adding scales in different colors and colored eyes, make sure to cover the area evenly.

Now cover the area with dark watercolor paper.

Just because I know what color theory is does not mean I know what Watercolor paper looks like and instead used white paper, most likely taken from my husbands printer for this project.  Well it did not work.  The paper was way too thin and absorbed all the water starting to rip like thin toilet paper.  So just in case like me you had no idea, watercolor paper is thick and porous.  The crayons will fill the pores and block the water and if you use the right one you will get something beautiful like this: