Private Art Session for Kids

4 kids (Ages 3 to 8 years old) + 4 waterbrushes + Pan watercolor kit = Fun time exploring water media during the weekend.

Drawing and coloring of Minecraft character.

Coloring a carton portrait with a waterbrush.

The deck bench proved to be a suitable drying rack in the nice weather.

Switching to some marker coloring.

Never too young to enjoy a fine Fixpencil leadholder.

Watercolor Postcard Session at the Art Center

Today, I conducted another watercolor postcard activity for a group of ladies after their docent tour.
Watercolor postcard kits ready and awaiting the 51 students touring the current exhibitons at the von Liebig Art Center: Naples Collects and Big Cypress Swamp: The Western Everglades Landscape by Clyde Butcher.
Visitors enjoying a quick watercolor postcard activity right before lunch.
Nicole striking a super hero pose celebrating the completion of yet another "Rockstar" docent tour. If you would like to continue to explore the creative potential of a compact watercolor kit and a pad of watercolor postcards, you might consider some of the tools listed below:

1. Medium or large waterbrushes efficiently combine the water reservoir with a functional easy-to-clean nylon brush (just squeeze and dab clean on any napkin or paper towel) nib eliminating the need to haul a separate heavy water container for rinsing brushes: Pentel and Niji.
2. A nice set of watercolor crayons can do double duty as convenient watercolor pans and fun sketching tools: Caran D'Ache Neocolor II Artists' crayons.
3. Lightweight portable blank postcard pads are available from several manufacturers: Canson, Strathmore, Cotman, Holbein.

Keep on painting!

Impromptu night art class for my nieces

Even after a long day of teaching art classes (for myself) and a full day at the beach (for my nieces Nicole and Camila), we still managed to do a bit of art in the evening before calling it a day. Always have a set of aquarelle sticks and a few waterbrushes handy for some impromptu watercolor sketching.
Pentel Aquash pocket set with 8 color pans provides a compact source for coloring and keeps mess to a minimum.
Enjoying the convenience of a Niji waterbrush.

Sketching with a leadholder loaded with a B lead.
Bit of watercolor sketching.
Comic cover featuring a princess in a garden partially colored with Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils.

Local shopping tip and sample field sketching kit

Time to check out your local Office Depot stores' clearance sections for some treasures. Some recent additions include assorted packs of index cards and holders that work quite well as portable sketching kits: take a handful of cards along with a pencil, and you can sketch anywhere without spending much in the materials used for your practice doodles and quick studies.
"500 blank cards for 83 cents" is a great deal that sure beats a small Moleskine sketchbook for ten bucks anyday. The Pentel Outline green/silver marker pen, refillable Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph 0.25 mm technical pen, and Staedtler Mars 0.25 & 0.3 mm technical pen refills were reduced to under 50 cents each (which is about 90% in savings from their retail prices).
Found this neat sketching bag (originally a German map case) in a recent trip to an Army Surplus store, proving that suitable art supplies can sometimes be found in the unlikeliest of places with just a little ingenuity. Its front pockets can hold a few wooden pencils, ruler, and sharpener while the two interior large compartments comfortably hold a Handbook 5" X 8" sketchbook and a tin of Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble crayons with a couple of waterbrushes. This light and compact set up could easily be taken along on field sketching trips and sketchcrawls.

Talented lil' artists

Cracking open a fresh box of Rembrandt 30 Half Pastels, and trying out the brilliant colors that can be achieved with soft pastels for the first time.
Pre-K little sister doodling with Art Rose markers following in her elder sister's footsteps.
Young artists at work using Caran D'Ache Neocolor I wax crayons and soft pastels. It's hard to understand the price difference between these Swiss-made wax crayons and their counterparts from the local kid's crafts aisle until you actually try them. Even grown ups would enjoy coloring again alongside their kids with these smooth crayons that yield rich saturated hues on the paper with ease. This product line is water-resistant and produces very little mess since the sturdy crayon sticks do not break easily.
Ooops! didn't leave enough room for the head, but already showing a high degree of observation skills at a very young age while copying the clown drawing guide. Colors and shapes are being accurately perceived and confidently drawn.
Second try taking no chances and started sketching the head and decided on her own to work on a flat surface instead of the easel.
Demonstrating her creativity, observation, and memory skills once more, Nicole finished her drawing by enhancing the original design with juggling balls as she had seen the previous day at the Ringling Circus show. In a further display of initiative, she proceeded to create another clown design.
In the meantime, Camila was getting acquainted with the properties of Faber-Castell aquarelle sticks and a Niji flat waterbrush. Noticed the wet paper towel and shop towel kept close by to keep little hands clean and free from moist watercolor and stray pastel crayon dust. Close supervision is always required when allowing children to handle artist grade supplies even if they are non-toxic (as it's naturally the case with all the supplies featured here) to prevent them from unwittingly ingesting them (never a good thing) or staining their clothing and furniture (since we wouldn't want any such accidental damage to hinder their artistic development by restricting their media exploration to just kids art supplies with their paler hues and limited performance).
Now trying out a Conte Crayons pastel set while combining two ninja drawing cards into one design back at her easel.
Quickly learned to wipe her fingers on the wet shop towel when switching between color pastel crayons and also kept wet paper towels right beneath her drawing to collect pastel dust (Good tip to keep pastel drawing mess to a minimum and facilitate cleaning)
After combining elements from the "ninja on the mountain" and "the ninja having lunch" drawing guide cards, she finished her drawing by adding a rainbow. Creative kids will continue to pleasantly surprise you by combining the guidelines they are given and by going beyond the task parameters by adding details of their own.
The perennial little girls' favorite drawing subject: "Mermaids"! Nicole chose to portray them feeding sharks. Once more notice the attention to detail and observation prowess in the depiction of the shark gills.