This lesson has become a staple for my 6th grade Core Art Class. Landscape is a great subject, very broad subject. Then choosing several artists with interesting, painterly techniques to inspire composition, approach to colors and mixing... you have a great lesson!
We look closely at Mandy Budan, a current Canadian Artist, and Vincent Van Gogh. Students create smaller thumbnail sketches in their sketchbook, (4x6), and practice painting with both artists techniques. Once they decide their own style, inspired by the two artists, we draw on a larger 16x14 paper. Students are required to have foreground, middle ground and background. Once drawn, sky and background are painted first, then middleground, followed by foreground. Each quarter, the students manage to create very different looking landscapes! No two are alike!
These 3rd Grade Ton Schulten Tree-scapes are another favorite of mine. This is a great lesson for teaching value mixing and complementary color mixing. First week is value, for the sky. Second week we used orange or yellow-orange with blue-blue violet for the ground. Then India ink trees and gold details... viola! Done! They look awesome hanging in a group together in the hallway.
Have you ever expected toooo much out of your students??? I might have this time... lol... but they ended up doing a great job on these Ton Schulten Abstract Landscapes! We discussed his use of vertical lines in his landscapes and tried to have both vertical and horizontal lines in ours. These took a long time, it was not a quick painting! But everyone enjoyed each phase. I encouraged keeping houses either warm or cool colors, then the opposite for the land. Some followed my advise, others did not. Either way, they are true works of abstraction!
Ton Schulten is one of my all time favorite artists! I discovered him years ago when I found a calendar full of his paintings when visiting the Toledo Museum of Art. I was hooked! I love his amazing colors and abstract style. I created a Prezi of his landscape and cityscapes to share with my classes, (Ton Schulten Prezi). I find it very interesting how he adds lots of vertical lines to his landscapes, a composition usually created with more horizontal lines.
This lesson was a COLOR VALUE lesson. Students used pre-mixed colors and various TINTS to paint in city buildings. The students mixed their own tints of blue for the sky portion.
The last step, we used India Ink to outline and decorate our city buildings. This was a great lesson for every student. It was hard to chose which ones to photography! They will look great later in a group hanging in our hallways!
I am so excited to share with you my first ever TIME-LAPSE VIDEO of my Annual Collaborative Mural Painting! This year the theme was " Hot Air Balloon Magic". I looked at many images for inspiration. Most ideas came from three main artists; Joey Chou, a current Disney Illustrator, Mary Blair, a Disney Illustrator from the 50's, and Ton Schulten, my favorite abstract landscape painter.
ENJOY!!!
I have done this for about 10 years now. I used to have students paint a flower garden. They could paint any kind of flower, anywhere, any color. Doing a mural that way is more creative for students but it runs into some issues. It is not a smooth process, there are arguments about location, size, colors. Then if someone does not finish, they are upset when someone finishes it differently than they planned. You can see the headache it can become.
I started 6 years ago drawing a mural around a school wide theme. First year, I let students paint in certain areas with warm colors, other areas cool colors. It was okay, but looked very unorganized. Then, 3 years ago, my classes were taken from 60 to 45 minutes. Game changer, I began creating a large paint by number. I mix lots of colors, this year 21 color wheel colors.
I tell students, "I get to be the artist! My vision, my work of art, you are going to help me paint it!". THEY LOVE THIS! It has made this experience so fun! Everyone likes having a color with a number. No arguing, no issues! They have a blast and feel proud of being a part of something huge.
I number part of the mural first, let the colors get filled in, then decide how to number the rest of the areas. Students paint way faster than you expect! If yo see me in the video working, I am numbering, not painting. I try to keep up with their pace!
