5th Grade Acrylic Painting Techniques

In this lesson I am teaching the 5th graders various acrylic painting techniques. We initially started with a base background color using long brush strokes, which showed students how to blend paint together. The students then loaded some of their paint with a generous amount of water, applied the wet paint to their canvas and let the watered down paint drip down or across the canvas. Some students stuck with creating a few drips, while others relished in the chance to give the paint a life of its own. A few students even substituted dripping paint with dripping water creating the effects of a reverse painting method.

Step two will incorporate an illustrative painting over the background colors you see here.