Many many vanishing points

Before we created the pop up landscapes with our year 6 students, we worked on the background  image. We looked at Dutch landscape painting from the 17th century and observed the broad variety of colours that are present in the well known stormy skies that are so typical of dutch landscape painting. Our students worked solely with primary colours and white. They used block paints and learned how to mix colours to create a great variety of tones and shades (see previous post on pop ups, y6). Students also learned how to use a vanishing point to create the illusion of vast distances in the landscapes.
We felt that their work was beautiful and worth leaving intact, so we photocopied the original paintings and used the copies to produce the pop up cards. Below is an image of some of their landscapes.

Figures in action - greek pots

Earlier this year, in art lessons with our year 6 students, we explored greek pottery and looked at exquisit artworks such as this:

Panathenaic amphora, ca. 530 B.C.; Archaic

Our students were inspired and eager to make their own vases and pots. Ok, the scale was reduced to their size, and the colours are slightly brighter, but look at how they were able to build a clay pot, apply coloured slip and design silhouettes based in their own figures! (these are examples from Sally Baker's class)

 

Dutch Landscapes in pop-ups

Year 6 look at Dutch landscape paintings and learn how to make a pop up structure to create an original landscape in 3D. They begin by drawing and painting land and sky adding a vanishing point in the horizon. They then fold and cut a pop-up structure in the background and add separate elements to the landscape such as trees, houses and farm animals. With the vanishing point, students learn about perspective and how to measure the scale of the elements of landscape based on the distance from the viewer. By looking at the stormy skies typically represented in 17th century dutch landscape paintings, students explore the use of colour to create less conventional skies. They learn how it is possible to apply reds, purples and greys to describe heavy clouds. For the land, students mix primary colours to create a wide range of earth colours and tones.