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Albert Bierstadt |
Visions of Your Utopia
Visual Arts Lesson, Grade 4
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to:
- Work as a team to create a body sculpture that demonstrates understanding of a painting’s compositional elements.
- Describe and interpret Bierstadt’s Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley, California.
- Use proper art vocabulary to identify the elements of art and perspective techniques of landscape painting including foreground, middle ground, and background.
- Describe the mood of Bierstadt’s Royal Arches and identify the elements of art and design that create that feeling.
- Create a landscape watercolor painting that uses perspective techniques, has a reflective pool of water, and communicates a certain mood or feeling.
- Make connections between the visual arts and creative writing by having their landscape paintings visually represent the utopia they wrote about in the language arts classroom.
LESSON ACTIVITIES
Body Sculpture of Landscape Elements (one 45-minute class)
Begin the conversation about the elements of art and design by having students create body sculptures inspired by landscape paintings. This kinetic activity will give students a new way of seeing and understanding the elements of art, and will encourage teamwork.
- Divide the class into groups of five students each.
- Give each group three posters of landscape paintings.
- Each group will choose one of the landscape posters to recreate as a body sculpture. Students will have to work together to decide how to create the landscape elements by posing their bodies, and who will create which element of the painting. Click here to see an example of a body sculpture.
- Each group will present their body sculpture to the class and the class will have to guess which of the three paintings is being recreated.
- Students will then critique the body sculpture and give suggestions by comparing it to specific elements in the landscape. Questions to guide the critique include: What works well in the body sculpture? Can you tell which elements of the landscape are being depicted? What elements could be done differently?
- Careful observation of students during this activity will indicate students’ understanding of compositional elements in landscape paintings. The teacher will see the concepts and vocabulary that need to be introduced and then reinforced throughout the lesson.
Teacher Reflection 2
Exploring Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley, California (one 45-minute class)
- Display the poster of Bierstadt’s Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley, California and have a group discussion about the work. Start by asking them to describe what they see in this picture, and ask them to discuss specific details of the landscape. What is the location of this scene?
- As students begin to discuss the elements of art and principles of design in the painting, use sticky notes to document the conversation. When students make observations about the colors, lines, textures, and shapes they see, write the word on a sticky note and ask the student to come up and place the note on the poster where they see what they are describing. Track the students’ participation on the teacher observation checklist. Some discussion questions include:
- What is the shape of the painting? How would you describe the space in the picture?
- How does your eye move through the picture? Where do you look first?
- Are there any lines, or do elements create implied lines, that guide your eye through the picture?
- Does Bierstadt repeat any elements in this painting? Do those repeated elements create a sense of movement or rhythm? What effect does that have?
- Does Bierstadt overlap objects in this image? Where? What effect does that have?
- Where are the colors bold and bright? Where are the colors soft and pale.
- Where are there warm colors? Cool colors?
- Where are the objects the most clearly defined?
- Where do things start to get fuzzy, blurry, and less distinct?
- Where are the trees the largest? Where are the trees the smallest?
- Have students identify the foreground, middle ground, and background in the painting. Review some of the techniques artists use to create perspective and space in a landscape painting:
- Objects in the foreground are closest to the viewer. They are large in scale, are painted with clear definition, and are the brightest in color.
- Objects in the middle ground are beginning to change in appearance, they are smaller than those in the foreground and they are beginning to loose details, and they are not as brightly colored.
- Objects in the background are farthest away from the viewer. They are small, fuzzy and have no details. Objects in the distance appear bluish and hazy, a technique called atmospheric perspective.
- Now the students can begin to make some interpretations about the painting and what it means to them. Ask them to imagine that they are there in that space.
- What does the air feel like? What do you smell? What sounds do you hear? How would the trees, rocks, grass, and water feel to the touch?
- What time of day is it? What season is it? Why do you think so?
- Does the painting make you feel a certain way or does it convey a certain mood? How do the elements of the painting express that feeling?
- Have you ever been to a place like this? Does the painting remind you of any experiences you have had in your own life?
- What do you think the painting is about?
- What is important about this subject?
Utopia Paintings (five 45-minute classes)
- Students will create watercolor paintings that illustrate the utopias they invented in their language arts classroom. Before students begin painting, review the following:
- Return to Royal Arches and discuss how this image might be interpreted as a utopia. How did Bierstadt feel about this landscape? How did 19th-century American viewers of this painting feel about this landscape?
- Review the Utopia Planning Worksheets the students completed in the language arts classroom for imagery they will use in their paintings.
- Review the painting criteria on the Self-assessment and Peer review sheets so that students know how their work will be assessed.
- Students should first sketch their landscapes in pencil before using to the watercolor paints. Be sure to review the elements of art and principles of design from their discussion of Royal Arches, emphasizing how artists portray foreground, middle ground, and background to create perspective.
- Once students have completed a sketch of their landscape that meets the criteria, they may use the watercolor paints to complete their paintings.
- Remind students to consider the colors they use and how those colors help to create a sense of space and mood.
- Have students complete the Self-assessment and Peer review sheets.
MATERIALS
- Looking to Learn poster set and other posters of landscape paintings
- Poster of Royal Arches, Yosemite Valley, California
- Sticky notes
- 11 x 17” white paper for watercolor painting
- Pencils
- Watercolor paint sets, brushes, water