|
|
Waldo Peirce |
Picturing Maine in the Strangest Places
Visual Arts Lesson, Grade 4
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to:
- Describe and interpret Peirce’s Woodmen in the Woods of Maine and understand murals as an art form.
- Understand the historical context of the Peirce mural and what it says about the time and place in which it was made.
- Discuss lifestyles, activities, and work in Maine as represented by Woodmen in the Woods of Maine and based on their own experiences.
- Draw the human form in action using correct proportions.
- Create a mural design with an unusual compositional format that expresses their ideas about what people do in Maine.
LESSON ACTIVITIES
Teacher Reflection 1
Woodmen in the Woods of Maine and work and life in Maine (one to two 45-minute classes)
- Introduce the students to Peirce’s Woodmen in the Woods of Maine and have them discuss and describe the painting.
- What is happening in this scene?
- Where does it take place?
- Who are these people and what are they doing?
- What tools are the men using?
- Describe the clothes the men are wearing.
- How has the artist created a sense of space in this picture? How do the lines of the logs interact and create space?
- How has Peirce fit the image into the unusual space around the door?
- Why is the door there? What do you think is behind the door?
- Share the history of this mural with students. First, explain that this is a mural. Ask students: what is a mural? Have you ever seen one? Discuss how this work was in a post office in Westbrook, but came to the Portland Museum of Art when the post office building was torn down in 1980. The door and wall sections are from the original post office. Woodmen in the Woods of Maine was a commissioned federal art project. During the Great Depression, the arts were included in Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. Peirce’s mural was created under the auspices of the Section of Painting and Sculpture, administered by the Public Works Branch of the U.S. Treasury Department. Artists who participated in these federal arts projects were subjected to strict rules of style, subject matter, and location for their works. Artists were invited to submit sketches to a competition then a committee would choose the artist to work on a particular project. Peirce had to submit several sketches and a scale color design before receiving approval for the final mural.
- Return to the subject matter of the mural and discuss how after receiving the commission to make the mural, Peirce decided that shipping, lobstering, or lumber would be appropriate subjects for Maine. His historical research for relevant events and industries revealed that Westbrook was the site of two important paper mills, and so the lumber industry became the theme. Peirce visited lumberjacks in the woods and the paper mills, and decided his best work would be of nature, not of machinery. The details depicting lumberjacks felling trees and peeling bark in Woodmen in the Woods of Maine came from his direct observations and advice from foresters who posed for him. Ask students to consider his choice of lumbering to represent Maine.
- Did he make a good choice?
- What other types of jobs do people do in Maine?
- What other kinds of activities do people do in Maine? What kinds of things do you do? What activities do your family and friends do?
- Track students’ responses on chart paper, then ask students to consider one of these jobs or activities as the subject of their own mural drawing.
Mural drawings (five or six 45-minute classes)
Teacher Reflection 2
- Return to Woodmen in the Woods of Maine and the class chart of activities in Maine. Explain to students that they will be creating a drawing that shows one of these Maine activities. What will make this drawing special is that they have to include an architectural feature, like the doorway in Woodmen, and carefully consider how their drawing will fit around that door.
- First, give students small sheets of paper and pencils to begin sketching their ideas. They should practice the following:
- How to represent figures participating in the activity.
- How to arrange their composition around the doorway.
- Details that are important to communicating the activity – what clothes people wear, what the setting is, what tools or other objects are used.
- Refer back to the Woodmen poster to help students make these decisions.
- Depending on students’ experience, review or introduce ways to draw the human body in action with proper proportions. The Body Proportions sheet illustrates proper proportions.
- Once students have a sketch that meets the criteria of showing a Maine activity or job with a composition that fits around the doorway, students can begin work on their final picture.
- On large white paper, students first use pencil to draw their doorway and setting. Still using pencil, students will translate their sketches into their final mural design. Remind students to include details of clothing, tools, other objects, the setting, etc.
- Once students have finished their pencil drawings, have them trace those lines with a thin black ink Sharpie marker. This will help highlight the details of their work. When the drawing is complete, students can use watercolor pencils to add color, and then water and brushes to create a painterly effect on their drawings.
- When students have completed their drawings, have them share with each other in small groups. Peer review – Group discussion will help guide their conversation
- Once students have finished their group discussions, have them complete the Self-assessment – Woodmen in the Woods of Maine and Your Own Mural Design as a final summative assessment.
MATERIALS
• Chart paper and markers for class discussion
• 8 1/2” x 11” white drawing paper
• 12” x 18” white drawing paper
• Pencils
• Thin black ink markers
• Watercolor pencils
• Brushes and water