Oil Pastel Landscapes

Landscapes are one of our major areas of focus in 7th grade, especially when we take a more abstract approach when creating them. 

 

After practicing a variety of landscapes (mountain-scape, seascape, desert-scape) we create are own version on black construction paper. The concept of atmospheric perspective is used to help define space without using linear perspective. This quarter, we used both oil pastel and chalk pastel and the results were dramatic. Before the pastel goes on, we outline our landscape drawings with glue to create a fluid and bold outline.

This project was based off a popular method we've used here.

Watercolor Landscape Collages

Watercolor paint is one of our favorite mediums at BMS. No matter how often we use it in class, students are intrigued by the endless possibilities.

I usually start of our watercolor introduction with a series of stations so students can explore the options. Wet-in-wet, wash, dry brush, rubbing alcohol, salt, scraping and blotting are some of the old standbys that I teach often. This quarter we looked at some other ideas like plastic wrap, crystallizing (using Epsom salts) and rice absorbing. The results were fabulous!

Plastic wrap technique...

Dry brush and plastic wrap techniques...

Wet-in-wet and rubbing alcohol techniques...

Oil technique...

***Be watching for a handout on all of these techniques in the next month on theartofed.com

Once we had a good understanding of all the possibilities that watercolor can create, we started to paint strips of paper to represent textured parts of a landscape (the strips were torn before we started).  Most students painted between 7-8 strips of paper to use within their landscape and combined it with colored construction paper to complete the finished work.