Watercoloring in the Waldorf method of wet on wet painting is a skill honed and tool used in Waldorf settings. The at-home teacher may used these methods as well to enhance main lessons. Painting can be relaxing and meditative, but if it doesn’t feel that way to you or your child, don’t despair. You may just need some time to find your way while working with this artistic medium. In this series, I’ll share tips and reflections throughout the live video. I’m recording these videos live with no edits (with some exceptions) so you can see the whole process from set up through lesson and clean up. I walk you through the process of mixing paints, preparing your workspace, taping down your paper, explaining which paper to use and which brushes work best. Next, my 8-year-old daughter and I do the watercolor painting lesson. I walk my daughter through the lesson with me, but sometimes we make changes as we go. For these lessons, we are using the book Colour Dynamics by Angela Lord. It has been a tremendous inspiration for these lessons. The book is gorgeous and features a number of examples from beginner level to advanced. You can find this book and others by Angela at my favorite Waldorf vendor A Child’s Dream. We are using Stockmar watercolor paints. These are concentrated paints need to be diluted with water before use. They don’t last long, maybe a month or so, once mixed if they are covered, but you can put them in the fridge to prolong their life. Otherwise, these paints will mold and smell. For that reason, take care not to introduce water into you tubes. Mix paints in containers, adding about 1/8 of a teaspoon of paint for about 1/4 cup of water. Once mixed, check the paint to see if you have the desired richness. You can also add more water to lighten or more paint to deepen. These Stockmar watercolor paints and painting jars can be found at A Child’s Dream and Waldorf Supplies as well as many other online Waldorf vendors. Lately, I’ve been using open glass jars for our paints and they’ve worked well for one surprising reason: The paint doesn’t mold! Instead, the water simply evaporates and and leaves a dried cake of paint which can be rehydrated for later use. This has worked out well for this series of lessons because, while we are working through lessons almost daily, we are not using all the colors at the same time, so some of them dry out and all we need to do is add a bit of water and get painting! Our new painting jar holder is from Mercurious. They are a fabulous vendor with high quality Waldorf supplies. While I would love to use 140lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, it’s beyond our budget to use that for every lesson. We reserve that paper for a main lesson or final project. You can find the superior watercolor paper at Waldorf Supplies. For our everyday use, I love the Fabriano line of paper. They have plenty to choose from, and our current favorites are the 90 and 140lb. cold press and hot press watercolor paper measuring 9″x12″. You can find my favorite paper at one of my favorite art suppliers, Dick Blick. For this project we use, we used the 140lb. cold press watercolor paper. It’s thick and textured and while it does still ripple and buckle, it can hold up satisfactorily to wet on wet watercoloring. Because we opted to tape down our paper on painting boards from Waldorf Supplies, we are not submerging our paper in water first. Instead, we wet our paper with a sponge or our paint brush. You want the paper wet but not sopping, glistening but not pooling with water. You can use a sponge to soak up excess water or a towel. When working during the summer or autumn months, I keep a spray bottle handy to wet my paper if it gets dry. On cooler days, the paper stays wet throughout our lesson. If you opt not to tape your paper down, we may end up with paint seeping onto the backside of the paper. When my children were younger, I just quickly set them up on our granite countertops and got painting as we didn’t have a lot of time for extra prep work. One perk of taping down is a nice border and a clean back so you can use the paper again. We are using 1 inch wide paint brushes with all natural bristles. When working with young students, you want to use the largest paper you can afford and a wide yet full paint brush.