Looking and Discussing
Grade: 4–5
Subject: Visual Art, Language Arts, Social Studies
Plain Viewing
-
Where did Whittredge travel to paint this view? Describe the terrain.
What clues has Whittredge painted to show you where the scene is?
-
Describe what you see in the foreground, middle ground, and background.
What living creatures do you see?
-
Can you tell by the plants what time of year it is? The trees in
Whittredge’s painting are cottonwood trees. What other types
of trees might grow in this Colorado meadow?
-
Light plays an important role in this painting. Where is the light
source? What time of day do you think it is?
Research and Writing
Grade: 4–5; 6–8
Subject: Visual Art, Language Arts, Social Studies
Compare and Contrast with Venn Diagram
Reporting from the Colorado Plains
-
You are a reporter traveling with Whittredge and his colleagues.
It is your assignment to describe to your readers what you see,
smell, hear, and feel. Write an article for your school paper telling
your friends, teachers, and parents what you have discovered by
looking at this painting. Include with your article a sketch of
the painting to be reproduced along with your article.
Drawing
Grade: 6–8; 9–12
Subject: Visual Art
Perspective in the Landscape
On the Cache La Poudre River, Colorado is an excellent painting
for learning about perspective. Artistic devices, such as scale, diminishing
detail, overlapping, position on the picture plane, and atmospheric
perspective all appear in the painting. Discuss these techniques with
students and show them how these effects are achieved. For the art production
activity, do the following:
-
Take students to a location on or close to your campus to draw.
Students should make sketches and write observations at the location.
Record what is seen, smelled, heard, and felt. These observations
will then be translated into a final work of art.
-
Have students then return to the studio to complete the work, as
Whittredge did.
-
Along with the finished work, have students create a label for
their work; write an artist’s statement explaining the process,
the location, why it was chosen, and the outcome—was it successful
and what was learned.
Link to TEKS Connections
|
