Landscape photographs (Arizona
Highways and Sunset magazines are a good source)
8-1/2" x 11" exact vellum bristol paper or 9" x 12" white
construction paper (1 per student)
#2 pencils (1 per student)
Erasers (1 per student)
Book about impressionistic painters (Monet, Renoir or Van Gogh - available
at public library.)
Tempera paint, landscape colors (sky blue, sage green, earth colors, etc.)
Cotton swabs or Q-tips (5 per student)
Small plastic restaurant cups
3/4" drafting tape (1-2 rolls, 60 yd.) OPTIONAL
1. Optional - Teacher or older
students use drafting tape to make a border on the edges of paper
before start of activity. Slowly and carefully remove the tape after work
is dry to create a white
border.
2. Tell students they are going
to be Impressionist painters like Monet, Pissarro or Renoir.
3. Choose a landscape photograph
to discuss with the class. Find the horizon line. Explain this is where the
sky and land meet. If the horizon is high, there is more land than sky. A
low horizon has more sky than land. Explain foreground, middle ground and
background. In the foreground, objects will be brighter, larger, and contain
more detail. In the background plants, land formations, etc. will be duller,
smaller, and be drawn with less detail.
4. Have students select a landscape
to interpret (from a photo, painting, or imagination). Decide if the horizon
line is above or below the center of the paper. Draw the horizon line lightly
with your pencil. Draw the "easiest lines" first.
5. Discuss the Impressionist painters
and display pictures of their landscape work. Choose a painting from the impressionist
period to discuss. Look for vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and curved brush
strokes. The paint was applied thickly in bold strokes (strong, thick, solid).
Make your paint strokes match what you are painting.
6. Set out jars of premixed landscape
colors. Try to match colors to the landscape photographs. Pour a small amount
of paint into small plastic cups. Use cotton swabs to paint each area. Remember
to make the foreground brighter, larger in scale, and with more detail. Notice
how the impressionists used several shades of the same color.
ART: Read Come Look with Me, Exploring
Landscape Art with Students by Gladys S. Blizzard.
GEOGRAPHY: Show on map where Impressionists
painters lived.
"Edgar Degas lived in France."
"Jean Baptiste Armand Guillaumin lived in Italy."
"Berthe Morisot lived in France."
HISTORY: Discuss the political
arena and culture of the times when the impressionist painters began expressing
themselves in this relatively new way. What factors in their environment might
have effected their impressions, ideas, and art form?
