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Art Lesson Plan - Watercolor

This art lesson plan outlines a watercolor landscape painting project for 3rd and 4th grade students. The plan provides objectives to learn watercolor techniques and understand how personal experiences influence creative works. Students will experiment with techniques like wet-on-wet, glazing, spattering, and using salt or saran wrap. They will then apply 3 techniques to paint their own landscape, depicting a foreground, middle ground and background. Finished works will be displayed and students will provide feedback on each other's paintings.

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Nickolas Walls
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514 views

Art Lesson Plan - Watercolor

This art lesson plan outlines a watercolor landscape painting project for 3rd and 4th grade students. The plan provides objectives to learn watercolor techniques and understand how personal experiences influence creative works. Students will experiment with techniques like wet-on-wet, glazing, spattering, and using salt or saran wrap. They will then apply 3 techniques to paint their own landscape, depicting a foreground, middle ground and background. Finished works will be displayed and students will provide feedback on each other's paintings.

Uploaded by

Nickolas Walls
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Kelly Junis

ART 332
Intro to Art Education
October 26, 2008
Art Lesson Plan (Basic Format)
I.
II.

III.

IV.

V.

Watercolor Landscapes
3rd /4th Grade
Lesson #1
Focus
- Students will begin to discover and explore different watercolor
techniques. The final piece should illustrate a wide range of techniques
and a piece that is visually interesting.
Objectives
- To learn different watercolor techniques.
- To find inspiration from historical landscapes and from personal
observations.
- To understand how personal experiences have an effect on what
individuals create.
Standards and Benchmarks
ART.II.VA.EL.1
ART.II.VA.EL.2
ART.II.VA.EL.3
ART.II.VA.EL.4
ART.III.VA.EL.1

ART.III.VA.EL.3
ART.III.VA.EL.4
ART.III.VA.EL.5
ART.V.VA.EL.1

Resources
The attached images are to be used as visuals either by projecting them
directly from the website, power point, or by viewing the actual prints.
- Vincent Van Goghs Starry Night (France, June 1889)
(http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starryindex.html)
- Thomas Coles The Oxbow (Massachusettes 1836)
(http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/na/hod_08.228.htm)
- Images from a Watercolor Blog site to be used as technique examples
(http://www.watercolorpaint.info/genres/watercolor/)
- Example of a more controlled watercolor from Sandra Martens
(http://www.sandramartens.com)
VI.
Time Required
- One class period (45m) and an additional 15 minutes of the next class
period used for discussion.
VII.
Materials and Preparation
- Watercolor
- Paint Brushes (large and
- Straws
small)
- Watercolor paper

- Masking tape
- Water dish
- Old Toothbrushes
- Paper towel
- Salt
- Mixing pallet
- Saran Wrap
- Images to show students
- Water
via projector or prints
VIII.
Motivation
- I will gain the interest of the students by allowing them to first explore with the
materials however they would like for approximately five minutes. Following this we will
discuss landscapes and together we will practice different techniques include wet on wet,
glazing, spatter, straw, dry brushing, salt, saran wrap, and masking.
IX.
Instruction
- Allow for students to explore with the materials set on their tables. The
materials set on the tables are water in water dish, watercolors, a variation in sizes
of brushes, paper towel, a mixing pallet, masking tape, old toothbrushes, salt, and
straws.
- Gather the students into a close group without materials in front of them and
display/explain some well known landscapes along with not so well known
watercolor landscapesto show examples. Then discuss what exactly a
landscape painting is. (A landscape painting is a painting that depicts natural
scenery with a foreground, middle ground, and a back ground. There is usually no
subject matter other than the scenery.)
Vincent Van Gogh: Starry Night
Thomas Cole: The Oxbow
Paul Cezanne: Mont Sainte-Victoire
- Following the students exploration and the introductions of landscapes its time
to show the students some techniques. With a new sheet of paper you will need to
instruct them to fold the paper once long ways then fold it so you get 4 sections.
(Fold the paper three times, once in the middle and one on either side of the center
fold. See example.) You will have 8 sections in total. On each section perform
one of the following:
- Salt:
1) Select any color you would like. You will activate the
pigment by adding water to it. Make sure your brush is full
of pigment.
2) Paint a small shape in one section on your paper.
3) Next sprinkle some salt on the shape of pigment you just
painted.
4) Ask: What does salt do when it gets in contact with
water?
5) The salt now absorbs some of your water and in a little bit you
will see the results.
-Saran Wrap:
1) Just as you did before choose a color that you would like
to paint with.

2) Paint a small shape about the size of a spoon.


3) Next you need to grab the saran wrap on your table and
crumple it up. Now just put your crumpled up saran wrap on top
of your pigment.
4) Allow that to sit and dry before you take the saran wrap off.
-Masking:
1) Take the masking tape on your table and tear off a few small
pieces.
2) Place them in a section on your paper.
3) Choose a color of pigment and paint over your pieces of
masking tape.
4) Allow the watercolor to dry before removing the tape.
- Wet on wet:
1) Fill the middle of a section with clean water.
2) Rinse out your brush and dip your brush in whatever color of
paint desired. Now just speckle the area of your paper you just put
water on.
3) Notice how the paint stays inside your shape and the paint pools
at the corners to stop.
- Glazing:
1) Chose a darker color to paint with and paint a small shape in a
section of your paper.
2) Allow for that paint to dry. Start another technique if desired in
the mean time.
3) Chose a darker color and paint a line directly through the shape
you painted.
4) Notice the lighter color still allows some of the darker color
through.
- Spatter:
1) Instead of using your paintbrush we are going to use the
toothbrush on our table. Place pigment on your toothbrush with
your paintbrush.
2) Now you are going to use your finger to speckle another section
with paint.
3) Demonstrate to them.
- Straw/Blowing:
1) Place a dot of pigment on a clean section of your paper.
2) Grab a straw and begin to blow through it onto the dot of
pigment.
- Dry Brush:
1) Lastly take your paint brush with little pigment on it and wipe
even more of it off on the paper towel.
2) Once it feels close to dry begin to paint in the last section on
your page.

- Now the students can continue to experiment on a new sheet of paper by


illustrating their own landscape but they must use at least three of the
demonstrated techniques.
X.

Vocabulary (according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary)


- Landscape
a picture representing a view of natural inland scenery
- Pigment
a substance that imparts black or white or a color to other
materials
- Watercolor
a paint of which the liquid is a water dispersion of the binding
material (as glue, casein, or gum)
XI.
Assessment and Evaluation
- The painting should illustrate the understanding of at least three of the eight
demonstrated techniques and include a foreground, middle ground, and
background. The scene should be from their favorite vacation spotimaginary or
real.
- After everyones finished with their landscape they will be displayed for the class
at the next meeting. Each student will get five sticky notes to write what they like
most about that painting (without know who was the artist of each). Some
examples could be:
- the use of foreground, middle ground, and background
- similar vacation spot or somewhere where you would like
to go.
After students select certain work that they are drawn to for different reasons they
we can discuss the array of landscapes and how the different techniques were used in
a good way in each of the pieces and how personal experiences have effected some
students works.
XII.
Background
Watercolor is usually a media that is less controlled than other painting mediums.
Watercolor is activated by adding water to the pigment unlike many other painting materials.
The more water you add to pigment the more transparent and lighter the paint becomes.
Depending on how watered down you get your pigment you can get something called a
watercolor wash. A wash has more water than pigment. You can also get your watercolor
very dark by adding more pigment than water to your brush. You can sometimes erase areas
of color on your paper by just rubbing a clean brush with water over the area of color lightly
then you can pick up even more pigment by blotting with paper towel.
Depending on the time of day you paint in your landscape can depend on the
mood that you give the viewer along with what season you paint. Some examples are
painting before or after a storm, winter compared to summer, morning and night, etc.
Landscape paintings are done all over the world and by many different artists, its a type of
painting and is not specific to one time period.
XIII.

Extensions or Adaptations for Students with Disabilities

This could be brought into other disciplines such as a science course and illustrating
different plants within the landscape. It could illustrate different climates and what
types of plants live in those climates. The landscape could also illustrate different
animal environments/habitats. The students could paint a habitat and after cut out
construction paper animals or draw different animals that live in that habitat.

Starry Night

The Oxbow
The following images are from the Watercolor blog:
Wet on Wet and Glazehttp://www.watercolorpaint.info/2008/07/07/sea-that-breafs/

Wet on Wet
- (http://www.watercolorpaint.info/2008/06/20/the-sky-crimean-autumn/)

Possibly done with Saran Wrap in certain areas

Resist with masking tape or wax for the moon:


http://www.watercolorpaint.info/2008/06/24/waiting-for-magic/
http://www.watercolorpaint.info/2008/06/24/the-sea-shore-of-sun/
Very controlled watercolor by a Canadian artist: Sandra Martens (http://www.sandramartens.com)

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