The fun part of homework,

One of my favorite projects over summer is the poster. My girls always seem to push it off until last minute but I think it is only because it takes so much prep. They tried to start on it the day before but wound up not having time so it was this mornings activity. My eldest has done the same thing every year, a Japanese beetle. This year, we all got into it and painted a beetle together. I realized watching them that they aren't actually taught any painting techniques. They have an art class at school and paint all the time, but it was the first time they heard that watercolors are not the same as acrylic nor oil color. They also were astonished at my portable watercolor set I own an the paints are dry, not tubes of wet paint like they have. Honestly, they have been painting with watercolors like they are acrylics for all these years. I showed them that they don't need to gob the paint on, they can shade with water, and we all realized that we should be painting the background first, then paint the beetle on. All in all, it was great fun. I think I'll paint with them again and see if they can use anything I taught them in their next projects.