Fifth grade students studied Claude Monet and Impressionism for this project. They quickly identified a few characteristics of Impressionism from examples I provided (bright color, visible brushstrokes, a "fuzzy" appearance). I can't say our school has a very inspiring landscape, so I gave the students some pictures from old calendars to use as inspiration for their paintings. (I wanted to attach the photos for you to compare, but wasn't sure about posting someone's photograph, so I just left them off to be safe.)
Here's where a little poor planning on my part comes in. I didn't order enough supplies for the entire year!!! I was running dangerously low on paints and painting paper, but had quite a few sets of tempera cakes and construction paper. So that's what we used, and I'll have to say that they didn't turn out half bad. :)
First, I had the students sketch out the very BASIC parts of their chosen inspiration. With this kind of paint, I thought it was best to have the students paint in layers so they didn't have to do too much mixing. On the last layer, the students added some shadows and highlights. Not too bad for tempera cake paint!
These are beautiful compositions.
ReplyDeleteGreat interpretation of impressionism by your students.
I love the colors.