♪♪ Welcome, everyone.

My name is Taryn and I'm from Lincoln Center.

Today, we'll be exploring... ...with special guests markers.

Let's go over the agenda, first.

Our agenda has four steps.

First, we'll gather.

We're going to gather all of the materials that we need and I'll share that materials list with you next.

Then, we'll experiment.

We've got to find out what these materials can do!

After that, we'll paint.

We're going to learn a little bit about landscape painting and then make our own watercolor landscape.

We'll wrap up by reflecting on what we've done and thinking about, "What can we do next?"

I've been inspired by the amazing musicians in the "Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom" to sing the materials list.

♪ Markers and pens and paper and brushes ♪ ♪ Something to protect your work surface ♪ ♪ And a towel, in case water rushes ♪ ♪ Water, of course ♪ ♪ We're painting watercolors ♪ ♪ But there is one thing you must gather ♪ ♪ Before all others ♪ Permission.

You must ask permission from your adult to do this project today.

It might get a little bit messy!

Ask them for permission to use all the materials that you would like to and, "If a marker comes back after an experiment and it is no longer a marker, is that okay?"

To paint a watercolor painting, you need water, paint, a brush, and some paper.

If you don't have the materials that were specifically designed for that, then it's time to hack what you have, to do what you want to do.

We're going to experiment with markers and pens.

So gather the markers and pens that you think would look nice in a watercolor.

Some will work, some won't, but we'll find out.

Gather some white paper.

It could be repurposed paper, like this envelope, tissue paper, and a tea carton that I've gathered.

Gather some things that have a handle and can pick up some paint.

I have a feather.

I have an old toothbrush.

I have some brushes that I made.

We'll explore that in a little bit.

And I have a cotton swab.

If you can pause the video, please do that now and go gather your materials.

If not, let's experiment!

Now that you have your materials and permission, it's time to experiment.

Artists and scientists are big-time experimenters.

We're always trying things out, learning from what we've done, and trying new things.

Our challenge is to hack these markers, that weren't designed to be watercolor paint, in a way that makes them flow like watercolor paint.

In our experiment, we're going to try and get markers to change from looking like this to looking like this.

Here, they have never met water.

And here, this marker said, "Hey, water, let's be friends."

Some of our markers are going to love water when they meet water.

Some markers, some pens, they're going to be like, "Ah, it's not really my thing, but, I can do a little bit."

And some markers and pens are going to straight-up say, "Nope, not for me.

You can keep that."

But we won't know which ones until we experiment.

Our challenge is to figure out how each marker and each pen reacts when it meets water.

You can set up this experiment however you want to.

For me, I used a chart.

My chart has a column for name, so I'm going to write the name of each marker or pen.

It has a column for marks.

I'm going to put some marks the way that the pen or the marker is designed to work and then, it has a place where I can make a big mark and add some water.

Then, I can add some water and then the mark in the next column.

My last column is called water dip.

I'm going to dip my marker or pen in water, first, and then, we'll see what happens.

♪♪ ♪♪ I'm going to make my mark.

♪♪ And then I'm going to add some water to it.

Oh, will it flow?

Oh, it's flowing a little bit.

♪♪ ♪ Nice ♪ ♪♪ Great.

If you can see, I'm touching my paper so, so lightly.

I don't want to rub hard when I have water on my paper, or I'm going to get a hole.

♪♪ We can take a look and see which ones of the markers flowed with water, seeming like watercolor paint, and which ones said, "No, thank you."

The yellow and the green worked really well with the water dip.

♪♪ ♪♪ The blue pen said, "Nope!"

when I asked it to make some marks in the water and just made pen marks when I dipped it in water, but, it did a pretty good job with marks, then water.

♪♪ ♪♪ I really like how the purple, when I put dots in water they got soft and fuzzy.

♪♪ ♪♪ So now I have the results of my experiments, I know how my markers work, but there's one more marker hack.

For this, we need an adult artist assistant.

Adult artist assistant, are you there?!

Oh, wait a minute!

I'm an adult.

I can do this hack.

Now that your adult artist assistant is here to help you, I will explain this last marker hack.

Inside every marker I've ever met, there's a tube of color!

We want that tube of color.

The way that we get to it is by looking at the marker and finding the place that it will open.

Some markers don't open.

They're not supposed to.

I'm taking a pair of pliers and working with some patience and persistence to get that marker open.

Inside, you will find a tube of color.

This tube of color will not make your hands dirty because it's wrapped in plastic.

Put it in water, and you've got gorgeous watercolor paints.

We have our paint and we're ready to make our landscape painting, but what if we wanted to experiment with our brushes?

We said a brush has a handle and a way to pick up paint and we used a cotton swab for our marker experiments.

In the materials list, I said you could use an old toothbrush or a feather, but this is already a hack.

These two things were not meant to be used as paintbrushes.

Just ask my chicken.

[ Clucking ] We could also experiment with making our brushes.

This is a reed and a piece of frayed cloth attached with a rubber band.

This one is a chopstick with a piece of shower scrubby and a rubber band to attach it.

Let's make one together.

A pencil, a rubber band, and a square of mesh that I cut from the bag that my fruit came in.

♪♪ Take the square or the rectangle of mesh, wrap it around the pencil... ♪♪ ...and attach it with a rubber band.

♪♪ Now, I have a handle and a way to pick up my paint.

♪♪ If you still want to experiment, you can now test out each one of your brushes.

How do they work with paint?

Remember to record the results.

And, if you like experimenting, like I do, don't forget to experiment with your paper.

Watercolor looks different on every type.

We have experimented with paint, with brushes, with paper!

And, now, it's time to make our watercolor landscape painting.

A landscape painting is a painting of the outdoors.

It's the opposite of a painting of the indoors, which would be called an interior.

A landscape painting is special because it has something called the horizon line.

The horizon line is the place where the earth and the sky meet.

You can place this line anywhere in your painting -- closer to the top or closer to the bottom or right in the middle.

I think I'm going to put mine right in the middle for today.

So, let's see.

Which material should we use?

I haven't tried this brush out, yet, so let's see what happens.

So I haven't experimented with this brush before.

I'm going to try what I always do with my brushes -- I'm going to move my brush back and forth across my painting, just to see, "Does the paint flow from this brush?"

And it is, but it's not.

So the paint that is there, I think I'm going to swirl my brush around a little bit, make some circles.

Those swirls will move my paint around.

Swirling my brush in circles, bringing the blue paint into the yellow paint and it makes green.

Blue plus yellow makes green.

Rinsing my brush when I have mixed my blue and my yellow, it makes green and I want a blue sky.

Swirling my blue to make my sky.

There's a lot of paint on my paper right now, though.

I might have to take some of that off.

I can soak up some of my paint with my towel.

I might do a little experimenting here to move the paint over my paper.

♪♪ I can get some drips -- ooh, those drips look so cool, coming down.

I'm going to take some of my paint off.

Dabbing with my towel gets the paint off.

Let's make that horizon line.

The water dip method works really well with this orange marker.

Maybe on my horizon line is a field of orange flowers, way, far away from me.

This orange marker just defined my horizon line.

Where my earth meets my sky, it's defined clearly now.

This gel pen, I remember, from my experiment, worked really well when I dipped it in water.

Maybe I'll make some purple mountains.

Again, water dip, it came out like paint.

Maybe I'll use a Q-tip to spread it around a little bit, but, first, I'll get some of my paint onto my painting with my water dip.

So these purple mountains are way, far away from me.

Things on the horizon line are farthest from the painter, so they appear small, even though they're mountains, and sometimes the colors appear less bright because there's a lot of air between me -- or the viewer -- and that horizon line.

So, oftentimes, in a landscape painting, things that are closer to the viewer, closer to the painter, are brighter in color and the things that are far away have a lighter color.

Oh, these mountains, they're so tall, in reality, but, since they're on the horizon, they look so small, for being far, far away.

I really like the way my sky is looking.

Different shades of blue.

Some are light and some are dark and it makes it seem like there might be some clouds up there.

♪♪ There's a little paint on my Q-tip, so I'm going to dot it in the sky.

Touch it to the sky.

Maybe it'll look like there are a few birds flying by, in the far, far distance, way up in the sky.

♪♪ I think I'll do one more experiment.

Let's see what happens with this green highlighter.

I'll make some bushes, maybe, some green plants, on my land, on my earth.

Certainly not in my sky.

[ Chuckle ] So I'm just touching it to the water and then bringing it like little dots of paint onto the bottom part of my painting.

♪♪ I'm touching my green marker in my water and then bringing the color to my painting.

I'm not sure if I like this.

This is totally an experiment.

I'm going to keep trying, move my paint around a little bit, and maybe I'll start to like it.

I can make a new choice right now, while my painting is wet, or I can always let it dry and then, make lots of new choices.

A little bit too much green in my bushes.

I'm going to touch my Q-tip to the green, pick it up, and move it someplace else.

My horizon line has faded a little bit, so I'm going to add a little bit more of that orange marker, dipping it in water, so that it looks like paint and not a marker.

There, that's a little bit more color on my horizon, so my horizon is more obvious.

I think I'm not really liking the way those green blobs came out.

I'm going to try something else out.

I can see what will happen with my land.

♪♪ Maybe that green will blend these green blobs that I'm not liking so much.

Maybe it'll blend it in a little bit.

Oh, yes, these are going to blend in really well.

So adding a little bit more blue paint over my yellow is giving me a green for my earth where the land is at the bottom part of my painting.

I'm so glad that I kept experimenting.

When I'm at a place and I think, "Ugh!

I don't like this at all," if I just keep going and I don't give up, I get to a place where I like it.

And, right now, you know, even if I didn't like it, I would let it dry and I would add something new in.

♪♪ Because that's the thing with watercolor.

I love the layers of this painting.

It's not one single color.

It's lots of colors layered and blended in together.

I really like how my watercolor landscape turned out.

I can see my horizon line is right across the middle.

I highlighted it with some purple.

I have a little bit of purple in the sky, to be maybe some birds that are flying south for the winter.

My paper's coming up a little bit, so, once it dries a little bit more, I'm going to flatten it down with a book so it'll stay flat.

I have some nice layers here -- The green layer and the yellow layer and yellow-orangish layer, my purple behind it, and then, my blue, blue sky.

I hope you had fun with the landscape painting.

I hope you discovered some things with your experiments.

I hope that you explore landscape painting more and more.

If you could see, in my process, I started to come to a finish and then I thought, "Oh, maybe I'm going to try something else," so I added another layer of color.

You can always do that.

You can always rework your watercolor paintings.

Especially, once they're dry, you can add more layers of color.

What would be our next steps?

Well, you could try out new materials and keep experimenting or you could change the format of your landscape.

You could go long or tall or, instead of big, you could go small.

And remember those markers that didn't want to work with water?

They said, "No, thanks.

I'm good."

Well, they would be great to draw into your landscapes.

So, this one became a cityscape, thanks to a marker that said no to water.

This one got some birds with a little pen that also was not friends with water.

I think I might draw on the landscape that I made today.

Once it gets dry, I might define that horizon line just a little bit more.

Let's reflect on our class today.

We did so many experiments.

You experimented with paint and brushes and paper.

You made watercolor paintings, learned about landscape painting.

I am so happy that you were here.

Thank you for joining me in the "Lincoln Center Pop-Up Classroom" today.

Always remember that you are an artist and make amazing things.

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