Georgia Standards

 

South Carolina Standards

 

Key Vocabulary

 

Materials

• Computer paper
• Cardstock
• Cardboard or additional cardstock for background
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Pencils
• Crayons or oil pastels (teacher tip: soak oil pastels or crayons in warm soapy water overnight; paper labels will easily come off the next day)
• Informational text that describes a geographic location students are studying in Social Studies such as the Sahara Desert (7th grade SS, GA)
• Optional - colored pencils

 

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Project a landscape painting such as Landscape from Saint Remy by Vincent Van Gogh. 
  • First, students will identify what they see in the image. Emphasize that they should make objective observations about the painting (i.e. physical features, colors, textures, etc.). 
  • Next, ask students to identify what they think about the image. Emphasize that students should be creating inferences using visual evidence from the painting. 
  • Finally, ask students what they wonder about the image. 
• Ask students to work collaboratively to engage in the See, Think, Wonder protocol (Harvard University Project Zero - Artful Thinking Strategies). 
• Facilitate a class-wide discussion around students’ observations, inferences, and questions.

 

Work Session

• Explain that the artwork students are looking at is an example of a landscape painting. Landscape paintings show a wide expanse of land–usually a countryside–and show depth through a background, middle ground, and foreground. 
• Show students the diagram of a landscape. Explain that the background is what is farthest away from the viewer, the foreground is directly in front of the viewer, and the middle ground everything in the middle. 
• Ask students to try to identify the background, middle ground, and foreground in Landscape from Saint Remy by Vincent Van Gogh.
• Explain to students that texture in art is how something feels or looks like it feels. Ask students to identify textures in the landscape painting.
• Tell students that they will be creating their own landscape artwork based off of an informational text. Provide each student with a copy of the informational text that connects to a region students are studying in Social Studies (if applicable). 
• With partners, have students annotate the text as they read, looking for details that describe how the region looks such as landforms, colors, etc. 
• Facilitate a discussion with students around what details they might include in the background, what details they might include in the middle ground, and what details they might include in the foreground. 
• Instruct students to locate and research an additional informational text on the same region. 
• Students should use their knowledge of research practices to identify a reliable source. Students should annotate the text as they did previously. 
• Students will synthesize the details that they found in the two sources to create their landscape artwork. 
• Introduce students to the term Collagraph Printmaking. 
• Printmaking is a process by which the artist creates an image that has texture and transfers that image repeatedly onto another surface like paper. 
• Tell students that the printing press is an early example of printmaking. 
• Explain the process of creating their artwork. 
• Students will draw a rough draft of their landscape on blank paper using evidence from both texts. Students’ rough drafts should have a background, middle ground, and foreground.
• Out of cardstock, students will cut out landforms like mountains and physical features like forests that they included in their rough draft. 
• Students should glue the landforms down to a piece of cardstock or cardboard starting with the background and moving to the foreground. 
• Students should use overlapping as they glue each layer down.
• Once they have created their landscapes, students will create a rubbing by placing a piece of computer paper over their landscape. Using a crayon or oil pastel, they will rub across the surface to pick up the texture of the landscape.
• Students can then add in details and additional texture using colored pencil, crayon, or oil pastel.

 

Closing Reflection

• Students will write a one paragraph artist statement about their work. They should include a relevant title for their landscape and what they showed in their artwork citing text evidence from both sources.
• Allow students to conduct a gallery walk within small groups to compare and contrast how they and their classmates visualized the text. Emphasize that students should look for similarities and differences in artwork and how that reflects the sources that students used.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess learning by determining whether students are able to identify the background, middle ground, and foreground in the example landscape and whether students can identify all the important supporting details from both texts that describe how the region looks.

 

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students’ landscapes included a background, middle ground, and foreground. 
• Students’ landscapes visualize the details from both texts that describe how the location looks.
• Students’ artist statements include a relevant title for their landscapes and what they showed in their artwork citing text evidence from both sources.

 

 

Differentiation

Acceleration:  Allow students to research the landscape paintings of Vincent Van Gogh or another landscape artist. Students can create their artwork in the style of Van Gogh (Post-Impressionism) or another artist of their choice.  Remediation:  Allow students to work with partners to create their landscapes. Each partner can create their own rubbing.  Provide students with an “answer key” of the passage to use to check their annotations.  Have students only use one text rather than two. Provide students with a graphic organizer to fill out with landforms, physical features, and agriculture as they read the text.

 

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Diagram of a landscape The Turning Road, L'Estaque by Andre Derain

 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by:  Katy Betts 

Revised and copyright:  2023  @ ArtsNOW