Earth Day Watercolor Art

For an easy Earth Day art project, try this Earth Day Watercolor Art! These beautiful watercolor Earth paintings are an artistic way for kids to celebrate Earth Day. Grab the free printable template at the bottom of the post!

RELATED: Earth Day Coloring Pages

Earth Day Art with Watercolors

We love this art activity because you only need watercolors and a black crayon!

For more Earth day art activities, see our Earth Day Coloring Pages and Earth Day Color by Number pages.

To take this project further, add an Earth Day writing prompt with this art project. You can also have kids write their favorite thing about our planet on the page.

You can grab the free printable template at the bottom of the post.

We used different shades of blue and green to make our Earth Day painting look like the Earth, but kids can choose to use any colors that they’d like!

Kids could also draw people around the Earth shape or add words that describe what they love about our planet.

Watch the Video Tutorial!

Supplies Needed to Make Earth Day Watercolor Art

• Watercolors – here is a set with lots of colors
•  White Cardstock
• Black crayon or Black oil pastel 
• Paintbrush
• Earth Day template – you can get the template at the bottom of the post

What is Better – Crayon or Oil Pastel?

Personally I like using the black crayon for this project for younger kids. The black crayon is easier to use (a little thinner and less thick) and you’re more likely to have it on hand!

For a more thicker outline, an oil pastel will give your final art a more rich appearance.

For younger kids, I would recommend skipping the crayon step and just let them color or paint the geometric shapes.

How to Make the Earth Day Watercolor Art

 1. Start by printing off the Earth Day art template.  

You can get the free template at the bottom of the post.

You can also draw your own Earth and draw shapes inside of it.

2. Using a black crayon or a black oil pastel, trace the lines on the template.

You want the crayon or oil pastel lines to be thick so that it creates a nice outline between the watercolors. This will prevent the watercolors from bleeding into each other.

This step is optional but it helps to keep the colors from bleeding and also makes the design pop a little more.

For younger kids, I would skip this step and just let them paint the printable design.

Continue tracing until the full template is outlined.

3. Once your Earth is outlined with black crayon, you can paint the inside shapes!

We used regular watercolors but you can also use liquid watercolors or kids can simply color the inside of the shape with a marker or crayon.

We used different shades of blue and green but you can also add more than one paint layer to make the same color darker. To make the paint lighter in color, dilute with more water.

Note: The areas to paint in green may be hard to see once the whole template is outlined in crayon. Kids can dab a dot of green paint into the green areas before adding the black crayon to help differentiate the two areas.

This art activity is so fun for kids because every painting will turn out unique!

To extend this activity further, pair it with a writing prompt for Earth day.