Students looked at the artwork of artist and ornithologist John James Audubon and discussed how he often painted birds in their natural environment. First grade chose their favorite animal and painted it nice and big with help from small animal plastic figures and photographs.
Common American Swan,
John James Audubon, 1838
American Flamingo,
John James Audubon, 1838
Birds of America, John James Audubon, 1827-1838
Next, we learned how a landscape is a view of the land and a seascape is a view of the sea. We created a landscape or seascape which our animal could live in and made sure to add in a horizon line, which we defined as where the sky meets the earth. When we put our animal together with our landscape, we discussed the difference between foreground, middle ground and background. First grade artists made sure that the foreground included lots of details with objects larger compared to the middle ground and especially the background, where objects are often out of focus with less detail. The last step was to use oil pastels to brighten up our animal artworks.
Student painting fish from observation.
Student painting dinosaur from observation
Student using oil pastel on top of tempera paint.
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