In second grade we have been discussing the artist, Grant Wood. We looked at many of Wood's landscape paintings and determined that a landscape is a picture of the outdoors. Wood paints the farmland that he grew up around in Iowa. The open fields that he paints contains many different textures. We discussed how he creates these textures by using repetition and pattern.
As we began our own farm landscapes, we focused on using pattern to create different textures in our fields. We wanted the land to be large and fill our paper so we drew our horizon line (where the sky and the ground touch) close to the top of the paper.
First, we started with pencil and the students followed along with me as I drew a barn. Then we drew our horizon line and divided up the land into different fields. We traced everything and drew in our textures with oil pastel. The last step of our project was to paint over everything with watercolors.
These paintings turned out beautiful. You can see more of the finished products on our Artsonia Gallery. Next, we will look at Grant Wood's very famous portrait, American Gothic.