The Lay of the Land

Language Arts Lesson

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to:

• Create sketchbooks to organize the various aspects of this landscape painting activity.
• Describe and interpret Kimball’s Twilight at Stroudwater for color, space, and mood.
• Use a variety of watercolor painting techniques.
• Create a watercolor landscape painting that expresses a certain time of day through color, brushstroke, and mood.

LESSON ACTIVITIES
Teacher Reflection 1

Sketchbooks (one 45-minute class)

• Students assemble sketchbooks by folding several sheets of 11 x 17-inch white paper and one sheet of 12 x 18-inch colored paper in half and stapling them together in a book form.
• To decorate the covers, students use texture objects and crayons to create colorful rubbings. They write their names on the rubbings and glue them to the cover of their sketchbooks.

Twilight at Stroudwater – Color and Landscape Elements (one 45-minute classes)

• Display the poster of Charles Frederick Kimball’s Twilight at Stroudwater. Ask the students to describe what they see in the painting. What is the setting? What time of day is it? What is the overall mood or feeling of the work? Why do you think so?
• Review the color wheel with the students; discuss primary and secondary colors and warm and cool colors. Have students locate and describe the different colors in the painting. How do the colors make you feel? Where do you see warm colors? Cool colors? What effect do those colors have?
• Next, focus the students’ attention on the space of the painting. Review the horizon line and how objects get smaller as they recede into the distance, as well as foreground, middle ground, and background. Where is the horizon line? What is closest to you? What is furthest away? What is in the middle? Does it feel like you could walk right into this scene?
• Students use their sketchbooks to answer the questions above, and use crayons to note colors they find in the painting and to sketch the foreground, middle ground, and background elements.

Watercolor techniques (one or two 45-minute classes)

• Students look again at Twilight at Stroudwater, this time looking closely at the textures and brushwork of the painting. How are the textures of the trees different from the grass and bushes? What is the texture of the houses? How did the artist create these textures? Look closely at the poster, can you see the brushstrokes? Are they sharp and clear or loose and brushy? Can you find different sized brushstrokes in the painting? Have the students compare the bushes and grass in the foreground to the clouds in the background. How does the variety of brushstrokes and textures impact the painting?
• Explain that Twilight at Stroudwater is an oil painting on canvas, and that oil paint is thick, so you can see the brushstrokes in Kimball’s work. The students will be creating landscape paintings like Kimball, except they will use watercolor paint on paper. It is still important for students to think about their brushstrokes when using watercolor.
• Show students how to fold a 12 x 18-inch piece of white paper into fourths. Demonstrate and have the students practice the following watercolor techniques:
  • Wet-on-wet. Wet the paper with a sponge or brush and use wet paint for the image. This will produce a wash effect, blurry edges, and muted, pale colors. The paint will run together and you will have less control over where it moves on the page.
  • Dry brush. Keep the brush as dry as possible and paint on dry paper. The bristles will create a stippled effect on the paper which is good for creating textures such as foliage, weeds, bark, waves, fur, shingles, etc. The colors will be brighter and bolder and you will be able to create sharper edges and lines that are more precise.
  • Sponges can be used to spread water or to sop it up. They can be used like paint brushes to spread large areas of color or you can dip the end, corners, or sides in one or more colors to create textures and details such as foliage on trees, leaves of grass, ocean waves, etc.
  • Wash and graduated wash. A wash is a large area of paint that is similar in color and value; a graduated wash is a large area of paint where color and value may change from light to dark or the color may change.
• Students can add these watercolor techniques pages to their sketchbooks

Painting Expressive Landscapes (two or three 45-minute classes)

• Return to Twilight at Stroudwater and using the sketchbooks, review the earlier conversation about the painting. What do you see? What is the time of day? How does the painting make you feel? Discuss Kimball’s career. He lived in Portland in the 1860s and 70s and made his living as a carpenter. Kimball was also an artist and loved to paint in his spare time. He and a group of friends would travel around the Portland area and paint on the weekends. They called themselves the Brush’uns, and practiced plein air painting, which means to paint outdoors. Kimball and his friends were interested in capturing the beauty of nature and the mutability of light and color outdoors.
• When students have discussed the painting and understand how Kimball used color to create a mood, have them begin to brainstorm ideas for their own paintings. What kind of landscape will they show? Will there be any buildings? What time of day do they want to show? What kind of mood do they want to express? Students make sketches in their sketchbooks as a way to work out their ideas for their final paintings. Review the students’ sketches before they begin work on their final watercolor painting to check for understanding of color, texture, and space.
• When students have a good idea for their painting, have them first sketch the landscape in pencil on 12 x 18-inch watercolor or heavy paper. Then students will use the watercolor techniques they learned to paint their landscapes.

Teacher Reflection 2

Painting Tips!

• Use sponges and wet-on-wet techniques to create clouds and sky.
• Paint land areas with washes using brushes and sponges.
• Decide which side of each building will be facing the sun and paint that side with warm colors; use cool colors for the sides that are in shadows.
• Use sponges with various foliage colors (mix greens, blues and yellows, browns) to create leaves, grasses, and other plants.
• Use the dry-brush technique for details like shingles, grasses, fur on animals – be sure to experiment first on scrap paper before creating on the final painting.
• Wet areas can be delicately scraped with brush handle or blotted with towels to create highlights or to lighten color and detail that appear to be in the background.

Watercolor Tips!

• Work from light to dark.
• Work from transparent to opaque.
• Plan ahead where the lighter areas of the painting will be (watercolor paints do not “erase”).
• Paint the broad areas of color first and let the paint dry, then go back and add the details.
• Mix colors on the painting itself to create a spontaneous look, or pre-mix on a tray to create a large quantity of new color for a large area on the painting.

• When students have completed their landscape paintings, ask them to write a title for their work, using descriptive language. Display students’ paintings and titles and have them share their work with the class. Students should complete the Self-assessment – Landscape Paintings, while the teacher uses the Teacher checklist/rubric – Landscape Paintings to assess the project as a whole.

Teacher Reflection 3

MATERIALS

• Pencils and erasers
• 12 x 18-inch colored paper, one sheet per student
• 11 x 17-inch sheets of white paper, several sheets per student
• Glue
• Scissors
• Crayons
• Objects for texture rubbings
• 12 x 18-inch watercolor or heavy white paper, one sheet per student
• 12 x 18-inch white paper, one sheet per student
• Watercolor paints
• Cups for water
• Paper towels
• Sponges
• A variety of small, medium, and large brushes (flat, round, and fan brushes)