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Paint Brush - Care and Techniques

I began by talking to the children about the new "very special" brushes that I purchased for the classroom use. We needed to take care of them so that they would last a long time. I talked about and demonstrated how, when they had finished painting or wanted to change colours,they needed to rinse the brush in the water, and then dry it on a bit of a piece of paper towl. I showed them how the paper towel would allow them to see if they had rinsed all the paint out of their bruhses. If there was paint on the paper towel, they needed to rinse some more. We talked about how to store the brushes in the cup - bristle side up and what might happen to the brushes if we didn't stand them bristle side up. I brought out the watercolour paper and the children described what it felt like, looked like, etc. This was special paper and we only had enough for one piece each, so I asked them to think about what they might like to paint before they began. So far, I had only seen a little evidence of pre-planning by the children when painting my aim was to encourage planning.

Before they began their paintings, I demonstrated a few different things that could be done with watercolour paints and watercolour paper. For example, what happens if you paint clean water on the paper then put paint on top of it, as well as what happens when you paint with clean water overtop areas that you had already painted. Then they were off.

Observations:

Almost all of the children, on a regular basis, remembered to clean their brushes. They all made use of the paper towel check to see if it was clean. Although some children's idea of clean was slightly differen than mine, I would always thank them for rinsing their brush out and then watched for the next opportunity to show them how to really rinse it out well in the water.

No one attempted to use the techniques that I had demonstrated and as I watched the children paint, I became aware once again of the wide range of differences in their abilities with respect to painting. Some children were able to manipulate the brush and the media very easily while others seemed unable to make the adjustment in brush technique and handling that was needed in order to use the watercolour paints effectively. Some children had a difficult time getting enough paint on their brush (lack of water) and seemed unable to find that balance between too much and not enough water. There were one or two children in particular that tended to scrape their brush on the paper, something that was disguised by the thickness of tempra paints and as a result I hadn't noticed before.

Once they had begun painting, my focus switched to helping the children to gain a better mastery of the media that they were using. Thus, I would provide direct instruction demonstrating how to better manipulate the brush and the paint for those who appeared to be ready to learn more. I showed them how they could, when they found that they were running out of paint, simply dip the tip of the brush into water thereby re-wetting the paint that was still in the brush. For the other children who seemed to have a bit of difficult adjusting to the media, I modeled how they could hold the brush closer to the tip (instead of at the end of the brush handle) and how to get paint off their brush by running the bristles over the edge of the water cup or paint tray.

I was extremely impressed by the time, effort and care that several of the children put into their painting during these two classes. One child stayed at my table for almost the entire morning, leaving only for circle time and snack. She took every bit of instruction I gave her and began applying it immediately. She quickly became very adept with the paints and in manipulating her brush.

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