Wet-on-Wet Painting With a Group: Setting Up a Co-op Painting Day

To paint with a whole co-op, set up a station for every child before anyone arrives. Each station has a board with a soaked sheet of paper on it, a sponge and a wide brush. Add a jar of rinse water and small jars of paint mixed the day before. Tell a color story, paint for 20 to 30 minutes, and have each child carry their board to a flat place to dry. Decide where the paintings will dry before your first session, because in a co-op that's the part that catches groups out.

This piece is about the group. How wet-on-wet works, and why Waldorf teachers start with color, is in what is wet-on-wet watercolor?

What you need for a group

At home one child paints at the kitchen table. At a co-op you're setting up eight or twelve of the same station, so count everything by the number of children, plus one or two spares.

For each child:

Item	Notes
Painting board	Slightly larger than the paper. The Wonder of Childhood uses 15 by 20 inch plywood boards with rounded edges, oiled with linseed oil.
Watercolor paper	Heavy paper, soaked. Round the corners off, as Myriad suggests, so children don't paint into them.
Brush	Flat and wide. Myriad suggests at least 16 mm; The Wonder of Childhood uses a 1-inch flat brush.
Paint jars	One small glass jar per color, so the child can see the color inside.
Rinse jar	A larger clear glass jar of water.
Sponge	For smoothing the paper and drying the brush between colors.
Apron or old shirt	Watercolor stains clothes more than you'd expect.

For the whole group, you need a tub or a clean bath for soaking paper and larger jars for mixing each color. Add a bucket for dirty water, a second set of sponges for wiping boards, and a pile of cloths.

Boards are the big cost. Families with a handy parent can cut them from plywood in an afternoon. Or ask each family to bring one, with a name on the back.

Setting up before the children arrive

Wet-on-wet painting needs a lot of preparation, and a room of children waiting while you fill jars isn't a good start. Give one parent the whole job of setting up that week and ask them to arrive 20 minutes early.

The day before, mix the paint. The Steiner Connection mixes about one teaspoon of paint into one or two tablespoons of water. Myriad suggests testing a brushful on paper to see if it's thin enough. Mix enough for the whole group in larger jars, and pour it into the small ones on the day. Leftover mixed paint keeps in the fridge in a lidded jar.

On the day, soak the paper. Myriad soaks paper for about an hour in cold water or about 15 minutes in warm. Lay the sheets in one at a time so they don't stick together. For a group, start soaking as soon as you arrive.

Lay out the stations. Each board gets its paper, laid flat and smoothed with a sponge. Myriad presses down and away from the middle to push out the air bubbles. Put the jars, brush, sponge and rinse water at the same place at every station, so children know where to reach.

Keep the colors simple. In a mixed group, give everyone the same colors that week. The youngest paint with the color; older children can do more with it, and in grade 3 simple shapes may begin to grow out of the color. Waldorf painting by grade shows what suits each age.

The painting itself

Gather the children at their stations with their hands in their laps. Tell a story first, where yellow, blue and red behave like characters, and then let them paint what the colors do. Color stories has examples and the order the colors often come in. The Steiner Connection opens with a question to the children: "I wonder what adventures your paint brush will have today?"

Then show, once, how to rinse the brush and pat it on the sponge between colors, and let them begin. Keep your own voice low. A painting room tends to go quiet on its own once the brushes are moving.

For the youngest, put them at one end of the table with one adult, one color and perhaps a smaller board. They'll often finish first. Have finger knitting or a basket of wool ready for them while the older children carry on.

Plan on two adults for the painting itself: one at the little ones' end and one moving along the table, topping up water and catching spills. The setting-up parent can then start on the jars while the last children finish.

Older children can stand to paint. Waldorf Today suggests children stand facing their painting, with the board propped on a small table easel, once they can manage their materials.

Where the paintings dry

This is the question most co-ops forget. A wet-on-wet painting has to stay flat on its board until it's dry. Simple Homeschool warns against moving it from the surface until then, and Myriad says drying takes several hours, often overnight.

So you need flat space for a board per child, somewhere nobody walks. Choose one:

1. A drying rack. The Steiner Connection describes children carrying their own board over to one, which it sees as good practice in balance. A shelving unit with wide shelves can do the same job.
2. A spare table or a strip of floor along a wall, in a room the children won't go back into.
3. Boards go home. Each family owns a board and carries the painting home flat in the car. This suits groups meeting in a park, a church hall or anywhere you can't leave things.

If the paintings stay at the meeting place, hand them back the next week. If you meet in a borrowed space, ask the owner before the first session. Co-op meeting places covers what to agree with a host.

Clean-up with many children

Tidying is part of the painting, and every child can clean their own station. Say it the same way each week, and it soon runs without you:

1. Carry your board to the drying place, holding it flat.
2. Pour your rinse water into the bucket.
3. Rinse your brush and lay it flat to dry.
4. Put your jars in the washing-up tub.
5. Wipe your space with the sponge.

An adult pours leftover paint back into the lidded jars, washes the small jars and wipes the boards once the paintings are off. Keep one sponge just for boards, as Simple Homeschool suggests, so paint doesn't creep onto the next week's paper.

If you alternate painting with handwork week by week, as in the sample co-op day schedule, a co-op handwork class covers the other week. Starpath gives a co-op a shared Waldorf-inspired program with crafts and the festival year, which can help when you're choosing what to paint each term.

A painting day plan to copy

	Our plan
Painting parent this term
Setting-up parent this week
Paint mixed (day before) by
Colors this week
Where the paintings dry
Spare boards and aprons kept at
Story this week

Paint the same colors for three or four weeks before you change them. Children often enjoy meeting the same colors again, and it gives the adults time to find their rhythm with the setting up.