Handmade watercolor palettes were created by doodling with
Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons on scraps of rough-surfaced paper. The color swatches dissolve easily with a water-loaded brush yielding brightly colored semi-opaque saturated washes. Without making much of a dent on a custom set of 18
watercolor crayons, 50 compact watercolor palettes were created to extend the expressive range of regular
Crayola watercolor pan sets (it only took about 3 hours and 2 people scribbling away with the crayons).
Soaking up inspiration: group of Manatee Middle School students touring
Kathy Spalding's 120 foot watercolor
Rookery Bay Continuum and bronze sculptures exhibition at
The von Liebig Art Center.
Attentively listening to the introduction by the Naples Art Center's Director of Education,
Nicole DuPont Strub. 
Classroom set up for watercolor postcard image transfer and coloring activity for 25-30 students: each student was provided with a turtle template, blank postcard, paper watercolor palette, pencil, brush, paper towel, and 2 cups of water. 15
Crayola 8-color watercolor pan sets were pre-moistened with a water mister and set on the middle of the tables for the students to share.
Staedtler drafting dots were also provided to secure the template/transfer paper to the watercolor postcard.
Students learned how to transfer the outline of a turtle without a lightbox by making their own carbon transfer paper on the back of the coloring outline with a soft pencil and transferring the image to a blank postcard.
Everybody was quite eager to start the watercolor painting phase of the activity. After a quick coloring demonstration some students went with a more realistic coloring approach while others let their imaginations fly and picked more whimsical color choices to paint their postcards.
School group teacher and Art Center docent supporting the students' learning process.
The entire group was very disciplined and focused in their paintings.
Even had a few minutes left to complete a few manga cartoon portraits for a handful of students that finished painting their postcards.
Spent the last few days with my nephew in North Carolina. Here he is trying to make Origami planes.
Watermelon break.
Made these custom coloring sheets for Mateo given his love for trucks.
Used my trusty sets of Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens to color a few pop-up card backdrops for Tato's playtime. This one was done right after watching "Clash of the Titans" which turned out to be a pretty entertaining movie.
Every morning a couple of new pop-up cards would be waiting at the breakfast table.
"Oh no! no more filling left!", and Tio Pork Bun already finished the other two buns.
Checking out the dragon pen we found at Target.
Doodling with the ballpoint pen.
Enjoying my travel set of Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble crayons.
Coloring some truck drawings.
Train ride at the park.
Taking a Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencil for a spin.
So long as they are non-toxic, I have no qualms about sharing my artist grade art supplies with the little one. Of course one must remain alert to avoid accidental staining of the surrounding area. Keep in mind though that once you get kids to appreciate the performance of artist materials, they might come to prefer them over the more inexpensive kid grade tools. I would recommend keeping the good stuff at home and using the easily replaceable more affordable stuff in take-along travel kits
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