Succulents and Surfaces!
This beautiful project asks students to create a textured surface using instant coffee and turmeric and then create a pen and watercolour artwork of succulents. Students will learn:
- To experiment with making interesting surfaces.
- To consider ’balance’ when making a composition.
- To learn about ‘weight of line’ through practical work.
- To explore watercolour, learning to gradate the paint.
This download includes:
- A 19-slide PowerPoint Presentation that includes objectives, information on succulents and turmeric, and step-by-step guidance.
- The presentation is also available as a Google Slides presentation, view-only link for quick, browser-based use (perfect for Chromebooks)
- Three pages of succulent images. Some images in this publication are AI generated.
- A 3-page written unit of work that breaks the project down into: Introduction, Creating a Textured Surface, Compositions, Drawing and Pen Work, Testing Colours, Watercolour, Assessment.
- An assessment rubric that can be used for assessment or self-assessment.
The written unit of work also includes a link to a blog post that details artists who have used gradation in their work, so you can include an artist’s historical link in this project if you wish to do so.
Materials required: Thick cartridge paper or watercolour paper. (My example was created on thick cartridge paper that had been stretched on a board) Instant coffee and turmeric. Pencils and ballpoint pens. Watercolour and brushes.
There are many more watercolour and natural forms projects on The Arty Teacher website.