Group of Seven Landscapes

So after one of my 1st grade classes, their teacher informs me that they are studying maps and landscapes. She knew I like to integrate and wanted to inform me.

My brain went to work. I wanted to do something different and save some other landscapes I do for later in the year. After some digging, I discovered the group of seven. A Canadian landscape group of artists, who all had different styles and all painted the landscape of their country. PERFECT. Now the challenge of designing the project it self.

First step was having the kiddos paint the mountains I wanted to include, inspired by above. 

I have the students fold the paper in half to give us the horizon line and a line for the mountains. From here we discussed what would be a good line to use to make mountains, after I demonstrated how I did it. (Note above is a student one.) Once drawn, I had them go over the lines with black oil pastels, it offered a thicker line and gave them some experience in the medium. Next we painted and I stressed not painting the sky because we were doing something special later on. 

Next we added northern lights. I showed them some pictures of the night sky up there and how the artists were inspired by this as well. And showed them a video about northern lights. I asked what colors they saw and we went to work. 

For the northern lights, I used simple white chalk pastels with color on top. I stressed the importance of  going one direction with their blending or as I called it "wooshing" they had a lot of fun and really liked the effect. Once done wooshing, they simple cut their white sky out and glue their mountains onto their night sky.