Marble Drawings with 5th Graders

I taught art in my daughter's 5th Grade class again today.  We drew marbles with watercolor pencils. This is actually a project that I did when I was in my Basic Drawing class in High School about 30 years ago. (Gosh time flies!) In that class we drew them with regular color pencils, so using watercolor pencils is a slight variation on the project.

Gallery of 5th Grader's Marbles:

Overall, I think the project went well.  The kids really liked using watercolor pencils.  I had them blend the colors together using baby wipes, which is a great way to use watercolor pencils.  Using baby wipes makes the project way less messy, and easy to clean up. I wish I had extra time to work with them on basic shading of shapes (like spheres) in general prior to this project. I think it would've been helpful.  

I have lead this project with art students in the past quite a few times.  Here are some pointer in case you'd like to try it with your students:

• Use paper clips or safety pins to put the marbles on/in - it keeps the marbles from rolling around.
• You can have the students trace a round object (paper plate, roll of tape, etc... before drawing the marbles.  (Or, you the teacher can do it ahead of time- to save time.)
• Have a test paper for students to test out color variations on - before they do it on the actual drawing.
• I only had about an hour to lead this group of 28 students through this project.  Ideally - you would have an hour and fifteen minutes, or longer.  Some students really like to get detailed with these.
• Baby wipes are amazing used with watercolor pencils.  Fold the baby wipes into small squares.  Use a different corner of the folded wipe for different colors - so as not to dirty up your colors when blending.
• Use watercolor paper or thick cardstock/bristol paper.

Here are some photos of the students working on their drawings: