Painted Ladies: Victorian Architecture

My 5th graders created these beautiful contour line drawings using elements of Victorian architecture as inpiration. We looked at lots of examples from the San Francisco Painted Ladies (by the way, I was shocked to know that 5th graders watch Full House reruns and are familiar with these homes from the opening credit sequence) to some examples from hotels in Walt Disney World and then even some in our own community. We learned architectural terms like turret, pediment, dormer, widow's walk and molding. The kids used pencils and Sharpies to do the line drawings and then created a background using liquid watercolor. We sprayed the liquid watercolor with water to make it run and bleed a little more. I think they turned out great!