Winter Landscapes

Spring has sprung, but I had to share paintings created by my 5th graders. Some of them had the chance to expand on a color theory unit by creating these beautiful winter landscape paintings. The background was produced by mixing various tints of a single color, creating the snow covered hills and the sky. We then talked about aerial perspective, and how objects in the front of the picture plane are larger than ones further back. Students then added some winter objects and painted them in silhouette. Final touches were added by creating snow falling and covering surfaces of things like roofs, tree branches etc. Enjoy!

 

 

Flower Field Perspective

This is a lesson in basic one-point perspective that I found at http://kidsartists.blogspot.com. I loved the choice of subject matter to create a colorful and stunning image. The children created a landscape image of Holland (home to famous artists like Van Gogh and Rembrandt) by drawing a horizon line and vanishing point. Long rows of tulips, hyacinth and daffodils were colored with oil pastels. Silhouettes of windmills and farmland were added to the horizon line in black.

One of my classes took some very interesting turns. Some students followed the lesson as explained, but we always talk about using artistic license! So one student asked if she could create her landscape as a night scene. I said yes, as long as she could utilize several colors. Another wanted to do a night scene in the winter. We then talked about how the landscape would change in the wintertime. For example, there wouldn't be any flowers! But her idea didn't falter and she created an interesting multi-colored scene as well. I love how she made a smoking chimney to keep the farmers warm. Sometimes you just can't forsee what kids will want to do with a lesson. Hurray for their vision!