America the Beautiful - An art and music integration lesson.

My music teacher is an over achiever, and wrote a bunch of new units using our new standards, in our new format, over the summer.  When we collaborated at the beginning of year, we discussed what units she would be doing in each grade and when.  Her first unit for fourth grade, "America the Beautiful" would integrate well with our usual watercolor landscape painting.  I used to focus on integrating the classroom's discussion on Illinois and we would use the flat landscape as our inspiration.  "America the Beautiful" would be a great departure from Illinois wildflowers.

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies

I was already familiar with the contemporary artist Terry Redlin, who's prints, mugs, calendars etc. were available at every mall in America.  His style is right up there with Thomas Kincade: the painter of light.  Seriously, these aren't the type of artists I ever want to promote in my art room.  Pandering to the mainstream populace to create trite overworked subjects makes me want to gag.  Total sellouts.  I'd jump at that chance though.  That guy probably has houses in L.A., Paris and Vail. In each one, a 70 inch plasma screen.  However, I knew he had a series of prints called "America the Beautiful."  And, they are beautiful.  I mean really!  (In that pandering to the mainstream populace to create trite overworked subjects kind of way).  Terry Redlin's style is really appealing to kids.  Kids love things that are *perfect*.  The lighting, the exactness, the details, all amazing.  F

from sea to shining sea

The goal for our first lesson in this unit was to familiarize, & visualize the lyrics to America the Beautiful.  I created a PowerPoint presentation to get us discussing.  It begins with a little history, a link to Ray Charles singing, and then lyric-by-lyric the Terry Redlin paintings.  I used Visual Thinking Strategies  to get my fourth graders talking about each of the paintings. I would interject by pointing out the parts of composition and try to get students to notice the details that quite literally illustrated the lyrics.

The PowerPoint also shows a few fine art exemplars of other artists who chose "America the Beautiful" their theme.  And finally, I included this photo from The Friendly Neighborhood Art Teacher that helps explain the parts of composition.

We continued our lesson the next week with some basic color theory.  Fourth graders practiced making neutral colors and how to compose their landscape.

Our last work day, we reviewed our assessment chart and fixed up our pictures with watercolor pencils.

I attempted to figure out the new art standards as I put together my assessment chart.  I still do not think I correctly understand where everything fits in.  This is going to take some time!

The toughest easy project I've ever taught. Fourth Grade simplified landscapes.

Fourth grade made simplified landscape paintings to round out their van Gogh unit.  We had recently finished our stunning Starry Night mural and I still needed to reiterate their use of composition and we needed to work on some painting skills.

Several years ago I purchased some giant boards from Blick.  My intention was to make portfolios for each student - but the boards were too heavy and cumbersome.  I have been trying to use them for projects ever since.  The 800 lbs. of boards have been stacked in my corner for too long!  I imagined brightly painted landscapes on each dreary board.  That was the catalyst for the toughest easy project I ever taught.

Our lesson began with a review of van Gogh's work.  We dissected several of his paintings on the Promethean Board.  Students came up and labeled the foregound, circled objects in the middleground, traced the horizon line, and labeled the background.  We talked about the size of the  kid sitting far in the back of the room, compared to the kid sitting right in front of me.  All the classic means of teaching the parts of composition were in play.

Next, I gave each student a sketch paper.  I demonstrated on the board drawing three lines - one for the foreground, one for the middleground, and the final for the horizon line.  I asked what kind of objects would I find in a landscape.  "A house!"  "A tree!"  "A bush!  "A barn!"  They understood - it was golden.

Then it turned weird.

Some were drawing straight lines, some were adding more outdoorsy details.  That's okay.  Then some started adding bizarre things to their landscape, like a disembodied head, or a large football.  I wasn't discouraging this initially - because I still believed the students were on the right track... but I was wrong.

I was seeing some students drawing several horizontal lines and I would say "You are only going to get four colors of paint, do you think this could confuse your landscape?" An entire town was going into production on one paper.  "Simple - simple - simple, you won't be able to paint all those details!"

I walked around several times, and again, I thought we were all on the right track, so I passed out the boards.  Students transferred their drawings to the boards and traced with Sharpie.  I started to see a few weird things popping up that weren't on sketches, like wiener-mobiles and banana busses.  At this point, I just had to stop everyone.

"Fourth grade - we need to keep our landscapes simple.  SIMPLE!  We will be adding more to our picture after we paint.  Please, keep your drawing to THREE LINES and ONE OBJECT.  Please, some of our paintings are losing focus.  We need to be able to see a foreground, middleground, and background."

Okay, good.  They are nodding.  They get it.

Nope.

By the end of the hour I had two students with three lines and an object.  I can not even explain what happened in the other paintings.  I should've taken a picture.

Week two.  We started from scratch.  We began dissecting paintings on the Promethean Board.  All the kids new their parts of composition.  I was using call and response, active learning, integrating technology.  All good strategies.  We got back our paintings and I reviewed the directions again.

It was kind of like a collective "ah ha" moment.  They got it.  Really, this time they understood what the connection between the paintings on the board and their paintings actually was.

We redrew, traced, and repainted.  We were on track. During week three, students added zentangle like patterns to each part of their composition.  They turned out as beautiful as I imagined they would.

The project was simple.  Three lines and an object.  The objectives were not difficult.  I struggled with my decision to squelch the students' creativity by having them return to their pictures and simplify them.  In a general, when a student veers off track I encourage it!  This time t was obvious that the majority of this class was just not understanding the basics of the assignment and they were not learning the objectives.  If they are not understanding what I was teaching them, they are not learning.

The assignment took longer than initially intended for this group, but it was worth it.

Anyone Can Teach Art: Out of This World landscape drawing. Easy lesson, sub project

I recently published "The Art Teacher's Substitute Notebook:  K-2 Lessons."  It is a compilation of 12 complete lessons for the art teacher to leave on her desk in case a sub is necessary.  Maybe you aren't interested in 12 complete lessons right now... don't worry, you can pick and choose one at a time!  Click the links to learn more about each lesson and see a preview of the pages.

Out of this World now available.  This lesson concentrates on the parts of composition, landscape drawing, and imagination!

On the Farm, now available.  This lesson concentrates on basic shape drawing and composition.  It comes with a detailed lesson, tons of examples, and a drawing worksheet.

Available now, Let's Face it! Basic shape drawing and portraiture lesson.  Complete with examples, a ton of illustrations, and beautiful worksheets.

The Name's the Thing!  This lesson combines, color schemes, design principles and fancy handwriting.  Includes a handout on how to write fancy letters.

 It's a Zoo! This lesson concentrates on basic shape drawing and composition skills.  Comes with an easy "how to draw" page and very detailed directions.

Also available, Big Butterflies.  This lessons concentrates on balance and pattern.

Available for free is Candy House. This lesson combines fairy tales and architecture and has great illustrations and a brainstorming page.