All items on a table, an autumn still life ready to be captured with watercolor paint. The instructor has a college degree in art. The artists have five years of elementary school art class under their belts.

On Day 2 of their watercolor workshop last week, Falling Branch Elementary School fifth-graders readied their brushes and looked to the table of harvest items.

Student Kayla Whitt drew her paintbrush over a pumpkin she painted the day prior. The technique is called washing, she explained. The students have used watercolor in previous art classes, but learned terminology like glaze, lift, negative space, transparent and pigment from visiting artist Carole Davis.

Davis usually teaches watercolor workshops for Margaret Beeks Elementary School fourth-graders in Blacksburg every fall. The Falling Branch PTA funded her first visit to the school this month. Art teacher Ouida Brown said the school chose fifth-graders because of Standards of Learning tests. The art project ties into the fifth-graders' social studies curriculum on American Colonial history, she said.

Student Briyanna Pruitt said she just liked it because it's fun. She and Kayla plan to give their artwork to their mothers.

For fifth-grader Gabriella Vaughn, painting is about expressing herself.

While the gourds, fruit and a candle were arranged on the table, students did not paint the objects just as they saw them. Davis encouraged them to include some items and exclude others. Elementary students see the fantasy in art, even when they're painting reality, she said.

"This is a magical time for them to experience art and I love that," Davis said.

Before the students began their painting session, Davis spent half an hour describing techniques she used as she painted.

Fifth-grader Michaela Worrell used the plastic end of her paintbrush to mark a design pattern onto the brown pot she painted on her paper, then glazed over it. "This makes it darker," Michaela explained. "It brings it out more."

Once the students finish their paintings, art teacher Rebecca Groesbeck will display them at the school before students take them home.

"My best art," Gabriella said, "My art that takes more than one day to do - we put up in the hallway at my house."

Michaela wants to finish her artwork quickly. The sooner she's done, she said, the sooner she can take it home and show her parents. Michaela added that her mother supports her art interest and let her paint a rainbow, stars, hearts and clouds on a kitchen cabinet.

Gabriella paints at home, too, spreading newspapers out on the floor.

"I paint whatever I want - swirls and stuff. I like to paint myself a lot, too," she said. But she likes learning about different artists and techniques at school, too.

"Finally we get to just look at something and paint it," Gabriella said. "We're learning how to watercolor for real.""This is a magical time for them to experience art and I love that."

Carole Davis

Artist