Native American Landscapes

This is one of my favorite lessons. I really like the way they turned out. The children began by discussing foreground, middleground and background and how images change depending on where they are placed on the picture plane. It was fun talking about different cultures especially during this time of year. Our landscapes contain mostly mountains, rivers and trees since we live in the Northeast. The children always love designing Native American clothing. It is so simplistic and easy for them to replicate. We began by using pencils to draw with. Crayons were taken out next and the students were encouraged to press hard to obtain a dark enough image. This isn't always easy for first and second grade. When we were through we mounted the art work on black construction paper then used chalk and rubbed it all over our drawings. Most of the students used corresponding colors to cover an area such as the sky which might be blue. The rubbed on chalk gave the art work a nice "aged" feeling. I hope you enjoy their work.