Sweet Emotions

This project was an absolute blast!! It let me be messy and creative all at the same time :) I used watercolor paper because it is thicker and specific for watercolor painting. To create a border for my boxes I used masking tape. It is very important to take the tape and put it on your shirt or pants so that some lint attaches and makes it less sticky. If the tape is too sticky it will rip the paper. This happened to me and it is very upsetting because it ruins the artwork. Each box is a different emotion and uses a different item to create the given effect. The first box I used salt and it turned out quite well. I put the blue watercolor down with a little bit of extra water (to absorb the salt) and then sprinkled salt onto the paper. It gives a crystallized affect and is really fun to watch as it soaks up the water. The second box I used a white crayon. I first rubbed on the white crayon and then painted yellow over it. I could really see the effect from this so I let it dry and then added more crayon to it. Then I took the orange and did back and forth swishes with the brush. The third box on the top was probably the easiest but still a lot of fun. All I did was dots with black, red, yellow, and blue. This is simple but unique at the same time. On the bottom row, the first one is my favorite out of all six of them. The effect was supposed to be a plastic bag print but I didn't let it dry long enough. It mostly did it in the bottom left corner where the purple is. I wanted this box to be a variety of colors with different styles. The next box goes dark to light with red to show a lightening of the emotion. I took hydrogen peroxide and dripped it on the paper and thats where the fading comes from. The last box I combined two things to create the effect. The white circles occurred because of the white crayon and I dropped hydrogen peroxide on this one as well. I didn't different colors to show that it is a mixture of emotions. The medium I used was watercolor for everything and then the little added things to change it up a bit. This project would be great for elementary students. It's simple, easy, not super messy, and inexpensive.