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Water Colour and Thread Shapes

In this lesson, students will explore colour and shape to explore their emotions and create a water colour and stitched artwork. Students will explore how colours relate to different emotions and practice a wet-on-wet water colour technique to apply colour on to paper. Students will allow this to dry before working over their water colour paper with stitched lines.

Step 1

Students choose an emotion and colours which may represent this emotion. This can be an emotion they are currently feeling or an emotion they wish to focus on.

Step 2

Students will apply water to their working surface. Using a brush, they will pick up paint and apply it to the wet surface. They will choose another colour and blend it with the previous one thinking about how these colours relate back to their chosen emotion.

Step 3

Students will continue painting and blending colours to create an abstract organic shape on their surface. Once satisfied with the shape and colour blending, students will dry their watercolour paper. They can use a hairdryer or wait a few minutes for it to dry.

Step 4

Students will use a T pin on foam to punch several holes along the edge of their watercolour painted shape. They will punch another hole on the opposite side of the shape, leaving some space in between.

Step 5

Students will choose a coloured thread matching the watercolour painting and their chosen emotion. They will thread it through a needle. Using the needle and thread, they will stitch through the paper, moving from the single punched hole to each of the other holes across the page. They will stitch back and forth until all the holes meet back at the starting point.

Step 6

Students will repeat the process by punching more holes in the paper and selecting another colour. They can overlap the shapes created with the coloured threads to create a sense of depth and space. Students will continue repeating the process, punching holes and threading coloured threads, until they fill their page with as many threaded shapes as desired. Students can choose to create a large number of shapes or a select few based on their preference.

Reflection:

  • What emotion did you choose to focus on and why?
  • What colours did you choose to represent this emotion and why?
  • What water colour techniques did you use to apply colour?
  • What do you notice about the shapes in your work?
  • Can you describe the difference in textures between the watercolour paint and the thread?

Extension and Differentiation:

  • Students can explore different watercolour techniques and use a technique to apply their colour in a way which links to their chosen emotion.
  • Students can work on larger scale water colour paper or cut their paper surface into an interesting shape.
  • Students can experiment with using different kinds of threads or threading and stitching in objects to their paper such as scrap papers, photos or found objects.

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