My kids have always enjoyed mixing crayons or oil pastels with watercolor painting. This is a project we have done a couple different times over the years. Check out bird painting and autumn sky. We are re-visiting the process today to create a stormy sky landscape for our Puddles and Ponds summer unit.

Materials:

  • Oil Pastels or Crayons
  • Watercolor Paper
  • Black and Blue Watercolor Paints
  • Paint Brush
  • Sponge or rag

Lightning Painting Oil Pastel and Watercolor Materials

Directions:

Use oil pastels or crayons to draw a storm sky landscape. Use gray for clouds, white for lightning, and dark greens and browns for the ground. You can add additional buildings and trees if you would like. Press firmly around the edges of shapes but do not fill the image with pastel or crayon completely. You will not be able to see the lightning until the next step.

Lightning Painting Coloring with Oil Pastels

Prep your paper for watercolors but dampening the whole page with a wet sponge or rag.

Lightning Painting Watercolor

Using a wide brush, cover the entire page with dark blue and black watercolor paints. The paint will not stick to the oil pastel or crayon markings. Lightning will appear in sky.

Lightning Painting Oil Pastel and Watercolor

Lay your stormy sky landscape flat to dry.

Lightning Painting Landscape