Page 23 - Specialist Crafts Catalogue UK

Introduce students to watercolour techniques for creating realistic effects, with a focus on layering and tonal variation. By using familiar, brightly coloured sweet and chocolate wrappers as subjects, the project is instantly engaging and relatable.
The intricate details, shiny surfaces, and varied colours of the wrappers encourage close observation, helping students train their eyes to spot subtle changes in tone, hue, and highlight. This not only improves accuracy in their painting but also builds transferable skills for rendering realism in other subjects. The combination of watercolour layering and pencil refinement offers a clear, step-by-step route to developing technical control while keeping the activity creative and appealing.
Steps:
1. Graphite transfer the reference picture OR have high ability students draw their wrapper out lightly.
3. Show students how to leave areas of the first layer where they want to show highlights.
4. Mix more paint into water to make the colour more intense, then add paint to make darker areas. Let the layer dry.
5. Repeat the process of adding paint and reducing the amount of water, then adding the darkest colours. You might need to repeat this step more than once but in my exampleI only added 4 layers of paint.
6. The final step is using a very sharp, 4b (or higher) pencil to add fine details, black shadows and some areas of tone.
Reference image
2. Identify the base layer colours, mix them and then apply a light wash - making sure students use more water than paint. Let the layer dry.
Sweet wrappers make learning realistic watercolour painting fun and engaging.