Make this gorgeous watercolor orca painting with a colorful sunset sky, a jumping whale, and splashing water. This is also a great project for kids to practice their drawing skills and try drawing an orca whale. A fun painting idea for older kids and tweens to learn easy watercolor techniques!

There are so many fun watercolor techniques for kids to try! Take a look at my collection of watercolor painting for kids for more fun and creative ideas. 

Kids will also use a toothbrush and acrylic paint to paint the water splashes and the foaming water texture around the jumping whale. Using an old toothbrush is a great technique to create paint splatters and texture!

For another sunset watercolor art project, take a look at this gorgeous sunset silhouette watercolor painting idea!

Create your own watercolor orca painting

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Supplies

• Watercolor paper
• Watercolor paint set or liquid watercolors
• White acrylic paint
• Paintbrushes
• Pencil and eraser
• Paint palette and water dish
• Wooden board and painter’s tape to tape down paper (optional)
• Old toothbrush

Instructions for your jumping killer whale art project

1. First, you want to prepare your paper. If you have a wooden board and painter’s tape, you can tape your paper down along the edges. This will help to keep the paper from buckling as it gets wet and also helps it dry nice and flat.

If you don’t have a wooden board to use, that’s ok, you can try taping your paper down to a desk or just skip this step.

2. Start to draw your whale using a pencil. First, draw a line to separate the water and sky. Next, draw the back of the whale using a curved line.

Following along with the photo above, finish the whale’s body and add a line for the mouth. Draw a fin and add a flipper and a small oval for the eye area.

Look at the photo above and draw a white patch on the back of the whale just below the fin. Finally, draw in a few waves around the orca and in the water.

Kids can also look at photographs of orca whales and choose to draw a different pose.

3. Get your watercolors ready for the sky. Kids can choose any 2-3 colors to paint in their sunset. It’s always a good idea to test out your colors on a scrap piece of paper first.

Start with clean water and very carefully paint the sky with the water, taking care not to paint inside the whale.

Start painting your sky with the color closest to the water and continue to paint all the way up, adding one color at a time. I used pink, orange, and yellow for my sky.

As you paint, the colors will blend together on the wet paper and create a soft blend for the sunset sky.

4. Next, it’s time to paint the water. You want to use 2-3 shades of blue for the water. Make sure you have a light or bright blue and a dark blue. Just like for the sky, you want to start by painting the water area with clean water, being careful to paint around the whale.

While your paper is still wet, start to paint with your lightest blue shade. Paint the water with the bright blue next, making sure you don’t cover up all of the light blue shade.

Finally, paint in the water with your darkest shade, being careful not to paint completely over the other blue shades. You want to see a variety of blue shades in the water.

Think about using longer, wavy strokes as you paint the water to create a sense of movement in the waves.

Just like with the sky, as you paint the water, the wet paper and paint will mix and blend together.

Let your paper dry completely before moving on to the next step.

5. Get black watercolor paint ready to paint the orca. Use a smaller round brush for this part and carefully paint in the whale, leaving the white sections unpainted.

To define the orca’s flipper, use a small clean brush and paint around the flipper to lift some of the black paint off, you may have to do this a few times. This will create a lighter area around the flipper.

Once you are done painting in the orca, let the area dry completely.

6. Now it’s time to paint the water splashes around the orca. You will need white acrylic paint and an old toothbrush.

Put the paint on a paint palette and dip your toothbrush in. Try dabbing the toothbrush on the paper around where the whale is jumping out of the water.

Dip your toothbrush in again and this time try swirling the toothbrush on your paper in the same area to see how it creates a different texture. Finally, use your finger to flick the bristles and create a fine mist of splatters around the whale.

Let your paper dry on a flat surface before gently removing the tape.

This watercolor orca painting is such a great art project for older kids and tweens to practice some easy watercolor techniques and try creating some water splashes and textures with a toothbrush!

More watercolor painting ideas kids will love

Easy Watercolor Shell Painting

Beautiful Watercolor Butterfly Painting

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