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Seeing Shapes and Values

The goal of this lesson is to help students understand the artistic ways of viewing what they see in a scenery. They will be taught creative activities that breaks down the fundamentals of Shapes and Values.





GRADE LEVEL: 7th Grade (12-13 yrs old)

TIME FRAME: Two Classes for 2 hours


Students will be able to:

- Understand the technique of seeing everyday objects as shapes rather than what is actually is. To easily draw the focal object/scenery.

- Learn about an artist style through an activity about learning Color Values.

- Work with each other to form a picture scene.

- See the relationships of Color Value to the Foreground, Background, Middle Ground of a scenery.

- Practice working with paint through Acrylic or Watercolor.


FOCAL ARTWORKS:


MATERIALS & INSTRUCTIONAL TOOLS:

- Various Shape cutouts

- Slideshow of Artists Work

- Glue Stick/ PVA Glue

- Pre mixed acrylic colors and tints on mixing palette

- Markers

- Pencil - Works by Ton Schulten, Clare Young, and Amy Giacomelli

- Viewfinder


PROCEDURES:

Day One:


Students will enter the classroom seeing a full screen view of the first image in the focal artworks. As this is the first lesson of the curriculum, the goal of them learning landscapes will be introduced for the first time. Stating that they will leave this class viewing the world differently.


1) Class starts by everyone trying to draw the first picture without any conceived knowledge of drawing. They will then share their initial thoughts on drawing a scenery.


2) As a segway to the focal artists, the fundamental concept of "Seeing" will be introduced. Teacher will state that in drawing, it's best to see objects as shapes rather than what it really is. Then example of works of Artist Ton Shulten and Clare Young will be shown as an example of how artist literally use shapes to create a landscape painting, and objects for their work.


3) A short background on Ton Shulten and Clare Young will be presented. Emphasis on their view of the world, why they create the way they create, and an analytic breakdown of their work. Additional discussion in continuation will be where the class identifies the shapes they see on a Ton Schulten painting. They will then contrast it to an actual picture of a house, and see if they too see the same shapes that the artist used for his artwork.

" That is the world of Ton Schulten. Or perhaps: the world in the eyes of Ton Schulten "  — About Tom Schulten

4) An activity will be introduced called "Collage Puzzle". The class will be broken down into equal groups. Each group will be given pieces of shapes, Bond Paper, Glue and an original picture. Their task is to assemble the pieces until they form the object on the picture. The pictures will be of a House and various Animal Shapes. They will present and explain their work and findings. The teacher will then reveal the original pictures and show what each group has done for discussion.


5) To transform their understanding from visual scaffolds into their own interpretations, the class will spend the remaining of the lesson in drawing various pictures that they are given. They will learn how to draw through traditional techniques. They will implement what they learnt about seeing objects as shapes into their drawing. The teacher will help by demonstrating how she/he draws a scenery by drawing the main shape first, then the sub shape, and then the details of the focal figure. Stating that details come later on once the object is formed.


Day Two


In continuation about Ton Schulten, students will be introduced to Color Values by re-creating an artwork inspired by his work.


1) A discussion on his work "City Scapes" (the third picture) will start off the lesson. The teacher will display terms that they will be using that day as well as their definitions to help with the discussion. Terms such as: Foreground, Middleground, Background, Hue, Tint and Value. Once the definitions are clear to everyone, the teacher will ask what they see in the painting using the terms used. For example they will be asked "Where do you think the Middle ground is? and Why?" or "Why do you think the artist painted that portion of the sky yellow?" "How many variations of yellow do you see?"


2) To start an activity on values, the teacher will demonstrate the relationship of primary colors with the shades of White and Black paint (This can also be demonstrated with watercolor pencils as there is more control). In the demonstration, the teacher will explain how and why the artist made the yellow color darker, stating that values come from the lightness or darkness of shapes. Values are determined from how the light hits the object, it depicts a mood, or depicts a weather condition. It all depends on what the artist saw that day. -A scale of square swatches will be shown for contrast. - A reference photo (second photo in gallery) will be shown as demonstration for Values - A deeper explanation of Middle Ground, Foreground and Background will be discussed, stating that values help distinguish the three. i.e. Background is lightest. 3) A set up of the main activity will be introduced. Students will be given a pre-gridded outline of the first focal photo. The gridded outline will emulate Ton Schultens style. Students will be given acrylic paints that match the picture, and includes black and white color paint. Their task is to paint the grids through the values and tints they see on the original photo. A model will be shown to give them an idea at the beginning of this activity.


4) For a closing discussion, volunteers will come up to show and explain their work. Pointing out how they found the light and dark values, and what they did with the paint to create that certain value. In addition, they will state one big finding they learned through this lesson.

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