What should we do today?

April , day whatever, and we are all at home wondering what to do! Well let's do something together as a family.

Let's make some art!
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Following is a lesson plan to inspire other's to be creative. Any age person can follow these steps and make something beautiful.  Now follow me as I show you the steps to make your own painted bouquet of flowers,
​the easy and fearless way!

The materials that you will use:
1 piece of watercolor paper any size. I recommend 140 lb cold press watercolor paper. Strathmore makes and sells pads of this type of paper.
Some watercolor paints in your favorite colors:
reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples
a cup of water to clean your brushes and thin your paint.
a palette or a white plastic or foam plate to use as your palette.
You may also want to grab a bottle with a spray top on it, also.

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Did I mention you will need a couple of brushes. I like to use round and flat brushes in assorted sizes.
If you do not have any brushes try using Q-tips  and yes, you can even paint with your fingers! Anything works to make painterly marks.

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Let's paint!

STEP 1:
Two ways to approach creating a wet paper  surface. 
1) Spritz your paper with a water bottle with sprayer. 
2) Or using one of your large flat or round brushes, dip your largest brush into a jar of clean water and then stroke your brush over the entire piece of watercolor paper, until it is wet.
Make sure that your whole page is completely covered with clean water and there are no dry spots. If you can see dry areas, just wet down the paper some more. It's easy!
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STEP 2:
Now let's mix up some paint. On your palette or plate, make a puddle of water in an open area and drop your favorite color of paint into this puddle and mix. You can use one color like a yellow, like I have shown in the photo or mix two favorites such as red and yellow to make an beautiful orange color.

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STEP 3:
Next up it's time to paint like a pro. Using your favorite painting tool : a brush, your Qtips or even your fingers dipped into your paint, create a swirl or a circular flower form by dropping the paint onto your WET paper.
Note:  If your paper has dried spritz the paper with fresh water.
Continue to add other colors in "flower" type shapes like swirls, long stripes, circles with small "petal" shapes around the outside, just like I am in the photos.

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Use your imagination and just have fun dropping color onto your wet paper surface. Remember to let the paint have enough time to spread across the surface in anyway that the wet paint on wet paper wants to. ​

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STEP 4: It's time to give our flowers some detail.
First off let your paper dry and when dry then you can....
begin by picking a color of choice and outlining a few of your favorite flowers shapes with a couple of simple strokes around the area of paint.

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In the my next pictures you can see....
Painting #1  I just painted flowers in an abstract bunch
and in ....
Painting #2 I have added a vase for my flowers to stand in.
Remember when you choose to paint fearlessly, you paint it your way!​

This exercise was about relaxing, spreading paint and enjoying sometime with whomever you are with. I hope that you have had as much fun as I did painting loosely using just bright colors on wet paper?
Keep practicing painting what we call wet (paint) onto wet(paper surface) and each time you give this technique a try it will get easier and easier!
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YOUR GOAL IS TO SPEND SOME TIME JUST HAVING SOME FUN!

Please check back soon, I will have another fearless painting step by step demo for you to try. In the mean time.....

Stay well and stay creative, my friends!