Our third project of the year was based on Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. He is one of my favorite artists of all time. We started our lesson off talking about van Gogh, We looked at two of his self portraits and shared what we knew. We looked at Starry Night, and discussed what we saw. We talked about what a landscape is. I explained foreground, middle ground, and background to them. We talked about impasto. There was so much for us to discuss; everyone had something to say.
The really exciting part was making the project, though. They started by creating a landscape of their own, which would serve as their middle ground. They could put anything they wanted into their landscape. Some went with houses, some went with nature, and others wanted animals.
While they worked on creating their world, I had them work with me in pairs to create their background. We marbleized paper by using shaving cream! All you have to do is add drops of paint on top of a layer of shaving cream, swirl it around, and then place your paper on top. Peel the paper up, scrape off the shaving cream, and the swirly color stays! We used night sky colors and gold for stars. They came out beautifully!
Day 2 started with a quick review of van Gogh and Starry Night. Next, they added their final details with oil pastel to their landscapes. We looked at the cypress tree in Starry Night and a couple photographs of cypress trees, and then they worked on creating their own. After they finished up, they cut out their landscape and cypress tree, glued them onto their background, and added an "impasto effect" to their cypress trees using glue mixed with black acrylic paint. They also touched up their stars and added a couple more using gold paint. The projects turned out wonderful! I was so happy with the results, and they were really proud of their work.
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