Nov. 2013, 5th Grade: Grant Wood Inspired Landscape Collage

This Grant Wood inspired Landscape unit took a bit longer than expected, in fact it took around 7-8 45 min periods! The results were excellent though, and the students truly understood the concepts of foreground, middleground and background. They understood how a horizon line separates the sky from the earth, and how to create depth and space in a landscape artwork.
We started by drawing a landscape with an example of Woods painting at each table. They learned that the objects in the foreground are largest, middleground smaller and the background they become the smallest to produce depth. Next, they used paint scrapers to create painted paper that they would use for the landforms in the collage.
The demonstration of how to overlap from the horizon line down was effective, and the students used their creative instincts to create the layered landforms to the bottom (foreground) of the page. Next, the details such as trees, houses and bushes were applied. The final class, the students were asked to write about thier experience and recall how they used the elements of landscape to create the beautiful work. Hope you all enjoy the fruits of thier hard work! Mr. Mac