Activity 6: Sketching Outdoors
Level
· All - While this activity has been
written for the intermediate and advanced level, younger students will
enjoy a simplified version.
Note
· This activity can follow the activities The Life of a Landscape Artist and Planning a Sketching Trip
, so that students have some context and commitment to the
process.
· This activity is weather dependent.
Purpose
· To give students
and teachers a sense of the challenges and rewards involved in drawing
from the natural landscape.
Materials
· Paper (approx.
8" x 10")
· Clipboards or other hard surface for drawing on
·
Coloured oil pastels, range of colours for each student
· Paper towels
for smudging and wiping hands
Procedure
· Sketching
Outdoors with Oil Pastel
1. Even if you are not in the
mountains or near a natural environment, students will still get a sense
of what it's like to create a landscape outdoors. There are more
distractions than you might imagine.
2. Choose an outdoor spot
within walking distance of the school, or plan a filed trip to a natural
space.
3. Once there, have students
choose a "comfortable place to sit" with a view they like.
a) To focus
the students, have them close their eyes and use their senses of hearing,
smell, and touch to experience the site before they begin to look.
b) You can read some
of the artists' quotes contained in The Life
of a Landscape Artist
activity to put the students in a positive frame of mind.
4. Give students several
sheets of paper each, and have them do a few quick sketches (2 minutes
each) to get warmed up. They should try to capture the whole scene and
fill the whole paper in that time.
5. Once they get the hang of
that, have them work on a more sustained drawing, observing shadows and
light, colour, sky, changes in the landscape as time passes.
a)
Encourage them to blend colours, and to stick to the same spot until they
feel satisfied they have captured something unique about that spot.
b)
Remind students that their objective is not to create a photographic image
but to express their experience of this particular spot at this particular
time. "To paint from nature is to realize one's sensations, not to copy
what is before one." - J.E. H. MacDonald, 1929
Evaluation
· Level of
concentration
· Student feedback
· Expressive and individual
quality of work
Curriculum Connections
·
Visual Art, Art History
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