lesson

The Northern Lights are a magical phenomenon! They make a great subject for an art and science combo lesson.

The Northern Lights also know as Aurora Borealis is the result of “charged particles from the Sun reacting with particles in the air. Although the magnetic field protects Earth from most of these particles, some slip through in the weaker areas near the North and South poles, creating amazing light shows such as the one seen in the video above.”
Source of explanation: https://www.sciencekids.co.nz/videos/earth/northernlights.html

The video below gives an easy to understand explanation of how and why these lights form.

After showing the above videos, allow kids to create their own Northern Lights. Use the step by step printable painting tutorial – available on Etsy – to guide the kids to create a beautiful painting! With this tutorial, kids will have the opportunity to play with watercolor and build their artistic confidence.

This fun painting project produces beautiful results! Practice five watercolor techniques including:

Masking areas with tape
Wet on wet painting
Splattering
Dry on dry painting
Painting layers

The Northern Lights Polar Bear painting tutorial is available for download on Etsy here.

Two years ago I created a blog post called “Easy Forest Watercolor Painting for Beginners.” The post outlined the steps I took to create this birch forest painting.

I created this image to go with it and pinned it on Pinterest.

The post became my most viewed post. Currently it has over 47,000 views!

For a long time I aspired to create a watercolor video lesson. It is much easier to learn by watching something then to read about it. But I struggled with the exact format I would use to create the video lesson. Finally I came up with a format and figured my most popular post was the obvious lesson to start with.

Instead of a long continuous video where I explain what I’m doing as I paint the project, my format is as follows. For almost every step, you can listen as I explain the step. You can also read the slide to follow along. Then you can watch a video demonstration of that step. My hope is that this format will better communicate the nuance of each step.

I’m really excited to see how effective the video lesson is. The birch forest painting project is such a great project for beginners. You learn so much about watercolor while painting the project. And it yields a great final painting at any level.

Easy Birch Forest Watercolor Online Video Painting Lesson – Learn Watercolor with this simple project!

Learn several watercolor techniques
10 step, easy to follow 17 minute video lesson
Listen and/or read the easy to follow instructions, watch a video demonstrations of each step
Great for watercolor beginners

Click here to purchase access to the Birch Forest Online Video Lesson.

Watercolor techniques used:

Masking areas with tape
Wet on wet painting
Dry on dry
Using salt
Softening lines with water
Adding details in ink

Click here to purchase access to the Birch Forest Online Video Lesson.

Would you like to: Be creative on a regular basis and experience the joy that creativity brings? Explore mediums and subjects, in search of your thing? Learn about my new book Creative Exploration: A Six Week Process for Introducing Regular Creativity into your Life by clicking here.

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