MS: Van Gogh Landscapes

Maxx B.

Oli

Amelia

Daniel

Middle school's first project was based on Van Gogh's field paintings. He was a Post-Impressionist and to better understand what Post-Impressionism was about, we looked at Impressionism and discussed the similarities and differences between the two. To put it in a nutshell (and I'm no expert BTW!), Post-Impressionists still applied thick brushstrokes, but were not limited to capturing light like the Impressionists were and used color more expressively. Van Gogh was a great example because in some of his work you can sense the psychological turmoil he was going through just by looking at his vivid color palette. After our discussion, I showed several different references of Van Gogh's paintings and encouraged students to take different elements into their own landscape drawing, but I also gave them the option of focusing on one specific painting. I demonstrated how to color multiple layers of oil pastels as the foundation and then how to add strokes on top of that. When they were done, I had students go outside and do their own interpetation. I think every student was successful with this project and I hope they'll submit these for the Original Works fundraiser!