Hawaiian Landscapes

As promised, a view of our "trip" to Hawaii! This year, my intermediate students are travelling around the US in search of Art From America. It could be recreating landmarks, landscapes, learning about regional artists, or emulating the work of artists.

While we were "in" Hawaii, my third graders did some lovely landscapes focusing on the grassy, mountainous terrain of the islands, complete with hot/cool color schemes. Funny how you can "teach" kids about certain things without them even knowing!

ohmigosh, sorry about the horribly blurry picture!!

What you need:

12x18 black paper

glue

oil pastels

Procedure:

This project will take two days. The first is for drawing the landscape and tracing those lines with glue. Because you cannot do anything to the paper once it's full of glue, I had the kids do an acrostic poem about Hawaii and a word search while it was "drying"...which, by the way, takes 6-8 hours.

When the glue dries, it creates a resist area over the pencil lines. The glue dries clear so it takes on the color of the paper (black) and doesn't allow the oil pastel to color over it.

On day two I show the kids how to blend oil pastels to create tints (especially on the "white caps" of the water). The land and water are colored with "cool colors" while the sun is painted with "hot colors". Aaaaah, nice to squeeze a little color theory in there while I can!

The results are magical. Of course you don't haaaaave to do a Hawaiian landscape! I've done this project with glue scribbles, portraits, etc. It's just the technique, but the landscapes look pretty spectacular (and fit right in with our Hawaiian unit!)

Happy creating!