Beginning to paint composition

The children drew their pictures onto the undercoated cardboard with chalk, copying them from their pre-drawn plan. Chalk is used because it can be easily rubbed off the undercoat if the image is not right. It is important to get the image large and bold; use lines only, no colouring in.

After the chalking had been completed the children painted over the chalk lines with thin blue paint and very thin brush (#0 or #1). This makes the image more permanent when applying the top coats of paint. I use blue and not black because I have found black paint permeates through the other colours after they have been applied. I was delighted to see the children enlarged their images to fit the A2 size cardboard. Certainly modeling and talking through the process helped them understand what was required.

Before starting to apply the colours the children had to colour in the part of their planning picture that was farthest in the background. This was a revelation to them as they began to understand background and moving forward to the foreground. In many cases the background was the sky or walls in the composition was done indoors. Some children found they had not included a horizon line and yet others did the typical putting a sky line at the very top of the picture. We had a great discussion about how the sky meets the earth. By colouring the plan many of the problems faced in colouring the composition have been recognised and solved before painting.

The work continues...