The goal for this week was to deepen my inquiry of Watercolour painting with some research. To do so, I set out on my usual path – to the library!
I used the questions I had initially come up with to be my search terms and found a handful of books on art and design basics, on the history and practice of watercolour, and even a teaching guide to the elements and principles of art. I also scoured the online article and ebook database through the library’s website and found research articles on similar topics and even one on the materials and tools needed for good watercolour painting. These beginning steps are always my favourite part of research; the topic is new and exciting, and I get to sort through a pile of works, quickly evaluating their worth and credibility. This was the easiest part of my research because it is a process that is very familiar to me.
For this inquiry, I also decided to step outside of my comfort zone in terms of research. I called someone – on the phone. There has never been a time where my research (in history mainly) has allowed me to reach out to someone knowledgeable and use them as a primary source. In this case, I have a friend who is a visual artist who I met teaching art camp in the summers during our undergraduate degrees. I knew she would be eager to help me on this artistic journey and offer guidance where she can. I enjoyed connecting with her on this and can see the value of asking colleagues for help when designing lesson plans. It can be great to lay out your ideas and have someone share their point of view.
To go even farther out of my comfort zone, I went to YouTube. I am wary of many videos available on this service, but I applied the same research principles and critical thinking I do to print material and found a few credible instructional videos. YouTube can be a great resource for lesson plans and content and we are learning how to use them in the classroom effectively. For this inquiry, I searched for original content, in order to be conscious of copyright.
My goal for this research was to deepen and narrow my lines of questioning and to begin to think of this inquiry project in terms of lessons so I can plan out for the coming weeks. I am confident in my variety of sources and types of texts (Hooray for being multimodal) that will guide my inquiry.
Next week’s post will be the results of my research on watercolour’s history and which supplies to purchase. Following that, I will choose one Element and one Principle from the lesson book I found at the library and give them a try! My plan is to use a lesson to guide me, either from the book, from my artist friend, or from YouTube.
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