STEAM at Fairsted- Watercolor

As the site of the nation’s first full-scale, professional landscape architecture office, we have many examples of creative uses of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math. We would love you to try out something inspired by the happenings of the Olmsted office!

Watercolor Landscape Paintings

The Olmsted firm’s draftsmen were responsible for bringing the ideas of the landscape designs to life! Sometimes they created watercolor paintings to show what the completed landscape would look like to show to their clients.

Vocabulary:
Watercolor: water-soluable paint
Foregound: what is in the front of the painting, closest to the viewer
Background: what is farthest away
Wash: mixture with a large amount of water and a small amount of paint

Supplies needed:

Watercolor paper (or a thick paper)
Water
Watercolor Paints
Paintbrushes with soft bristles
A landscape to look at that you are inspired by! If you cannot go there in person, look at a picture of your favorite landscape.
Optional: printable PDF of activity

Directions:

1. Find a landscape you are interested in painting.
2. Lightly sketch the landscape with just a whisper of your pencil tip.
3. Use your fingertips or a clean brush to lightly wet the background areas of the paper with water, leaving the subjects / foreground dry.
4. Using a mixture that has more water than paint, (also called a “wash”), paint the background of the landscape.
   Tip: You can create swirls of color for the sky or ground by dropping different colors onto that section of the paper.
5. After the background has dried, paint the foreground subjects with a mixture that has more paint than the wash did.