In preparation for this Fine Arts evening the students worked with Mr. Olson during their weekly Music classes as well as extra practice sessions with Division 4.
In the classroom we spent a few weeks learning about three different famous Impressionists artists – Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, and Vincent Van Gogh. We read a few picture books based on the different artists and their lives. As well, I read to the students some biographical information on each the artists. The grade two students remembered Van Gogh from work that we produced last year (‘A Starry Night’ and ‘Sunflowers’).
Each of the art pieces began as a ‘directed drawing’ lesson with me modelling on the white board and the students working with pencil and paper. We used prints of the artists’ work as reference points. Students worked with oil pastels for the bulk of their finished product. For the Monet and Cezanne pieces they added a wash of paint on top of the oil pastel. The Van Gogh pieces were strictly done with oil pastel.
Our first art piece was “The Japanese Footbridge”, by Claude Monet. Students enjoyed learning about the effect of light on art as we looked at a wide variety of the Monet pieces which only varied by the time of the day when they were painted. They also liked the water lilies.
Our next artist was Paul Cezanne. We looked at a variety of his still life pictures. Students learned about perspective and shading, as well as the variety of colours in the different pieces of fruit.
The last artist we looked at was Vincent Van Gogh. For this picture we re-created “Cypresses and Wheat Field”. The students worked on doing the horizontal lines of the landscape, the variety of greens and yellows for the vegetation, and the swirls of colours that form the clouds and sky for which Van Gogh is well-known. [ Yes, I know that ‘cypresses’ is spelt incorrectly on the title – oops 🙂 ]
