Seascapes (4th)

This basis for this project came from the blog ARTipelago.
This week my 4th graders were learning about landscapes and seascapes! We began by looking at the work of Winslow Homer and then began from there!
On the first day students painted a piece of 6"x12" watercolor paper with liquid watercolors (my favoriteeeeeeeee). When we were looking at the work of Winslow Homer I made it a point to show them that when Homer painted his seascapes, he didn't just use blue.. he used a whole range of colors (blue, white, greens, browns, etc...) - so we blended a few colors as well!
The next day, students used tempera paint (white, light blue, and blue) to paint a sky for the background on a sheet of drawing paper. Once cleaned up, we also folded our origami sailboats using a variety of scrapbooking paper. Students were asked to use different sizes when making their boats to better help create the illusion of depth in their artwork (big boat in the foreground, medium in the middle-ground, and small in the background).


The next day students tore up their watercolor paper into strips and layered and glued them down to their sky backgrounds. Sailboats were arranged and glued on as well.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the results I've gotten with this!
I'm following up this lesson with a 2-day value landscape project - photos to come!


4 comments

  1. Very nice! I like how you're incorporating origami into a larger piece of art. I also love the ones where the white of the torn paper shows in the ocean!

    One thing, though; are you sure you don't mean Winslow Homer, not Winston Homer? I looked up Winston Homer on Wikipedia, and couldn't find anyone by that name. I do know that art runs in families (i.e. Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Bruegel the Younger), so I wouldn't be surprised if there was another seascape-painting Homer! But, I couldn't find one, so I'm wondering if perhaps that was a typo (or spell check got to you? My spell check likes the name Winston, but not Winslow!)

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  2. I completely meant Winslow Homer. haha thanks for letting me know! :)

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  3. Could you please describe how you folded the boats?

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    1. I'm adding some visual directions to my post now! :)

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