2nd Grade: To Infinity, and Beyond! Creating Depth in Space

2nd Grade is learning how to use the tricks of the trade to create a realistic landscape, in which objects appear to be close, far and in between. I began the unit by grabbing their attention with a popular movie classic: STAR WARS!! We watched the opening crawl and observed what was happening to the words: They were getting smaller as they moved up the screen. And what did this make the words appear to be doing? Fly far back into space!

This piece of cinematic special effects illustrates the tools an artist uses for creating the illusion of depth. The artist that designed this segment of the film (future career for some o our aspiring artists?!?!) used size and placement on the page to create this effect. The smaller something is and the higher up the page it is, the farther away it will seem. Conversely, the larger something is and the lower it is on the page, the closer it will appear.

After looking at some examples of landscapes from past artists, such as Van Gogh, and playing around with shapes on the Promethean Board, students completed a collage using 8-10 shapes in which they had to arrange them so they appeared to the flying back or forward through space.

We then added the Horizon Line to our tool kit. The horizon line separates the sky from the land in landscape artwork. We practiced drawing in our sketchbooks using the horizon line and applying the concepts we learned earlier-size and placement on the page. This time, far away objects had to be near the horizon line, instead of high on the page.

Finally, after all of this prep work, we're ready to talk about the final project: Imagined Landscapes. We read Imagine A Place by Rob Gonsalves, and kept our eyes open for the horizon line, sizes and placement of objects on the page as we looked at the surreal landscapes and scenes drawn by the illustrator. Students then set out to draw their own imaginary landscapes. The only requirements were that the must include a horizon line, and objects that are far away and near.

The last step was to add color. We used colored pencils, and talked about how to improve our CRAFTSMANSHIP, that is, taking our time and making sure our work looks well thought out and polished. We do this by using small strokes close to each other, trying to color in only a few directions,  and covering all of the white spaces. Everyone named their place and explained what one would find in it if they were to visit.

To view all of the finished landscape drawing please visit https://sites.google.com/site/mrsrart/student-galleries and click on a class.