Watercolor Crab Resist

This is our final project for the ocean unit and it’s a super quick and beautiful project. Watercolor resist is an easy process that yields beautiful results. The wax from the crayons you use builds up on the paper and keeps the watercolor from filling it in/covering it. There’s a less kid-friendly resist material called masking fluid but it requires time to dry and then removal when you’re finished. This process with crayons will give you a similar effect without the smell, dry time, and cost. Let’s go!

MATERIALS:
+ good white paper
+ sharpie
+ watercolor
+ water and brush
+ crayons

Start by drawing an ocean creature large enough for you to paint inside. I went with a crab. Below is an example of a lobster I made. You could make a clam, shrimp, urchin, sponge, sea anemone, dolphin, fish, eel, octopus, squid, seahorse, sting ray, puffer fish, sea star, sea turtle, jellyfish…the listing could go on forever!

Grab some crayons and add a little color here and there. Don’t color the whole thing in and make sure you’re pushing down hard with the crayon. We want the wax of the crayon to be thick enough on our paper to keep the watercolor away.

Now it’s time to move on to the watercolor portion of the project. I used a variety of reds and oranges for my crab. Making sure I had enough water on my brush, I filled in my drawing carefully, noticing that sometimes it was pushed away from the waxy crayon. It should look like the crayon glows a bit. You can see that some of my green crayon was covered, but not entirely. No biggie- it’s all gonna work out!

Continue to finish the whole animal. Let it dry for a little while before you hang it up!

Working by yourself shouldn’t take too much time, certainly not the whole hour we would spend on it in class. Make another one if you’d like- change your crayon colors and watercolor choices. Try and make some large creatures and some small creatures. There are so many options!

What did you make? What’s your favorite ocean creature? Happy making!