We start off drawing six ovals in a row on watercolor paper. I have them mark the center of their paper with a guide line and start with an oval on each side of their guide line, then go on from there. Once the ovals are in place we add fins, fish lips, eyes and tails.
Then draw in the sand at the bottom.
We discuss primary, secondary, and neutral colors.
Using Crayola Watercolor Pencils, just Red, Yellow and Blue. I make them follow along with me each step of coloring. It makes it easy to just color in a row rather than primaries first then secondary.
When we get to the orange and green. I have them start with yellow then lightly color, the red or blue over the yellow. For the purple, they need to color both red and blue lightly for it to work.
For the sand, I have them start by coloring it all yellow, then lightly with red, then lightly with blue.
It blows their mind that this will become brown.
Once the fish are all colored in we use a small amount of water on a watercolor brush and begin painting over the yellow fish first then work our way to the other colors, then the sand last, rinsing the brush in between.
As long as they are only using a small amount of water, the fish should dry quickly and they can use a black marker to draw over the eyes and fins.
