A 5th Grade Project: Landscapes with Gold Leaf
Fifth grade is the year where art skills are refined through crafting pen and ink drawings, watercolor paintings, and sculptures focusing on proportion, value, and scale. Students also begin translating words into pictures and pictures into words by investigating through depicting settings, combining shapes for meaning, using color for mood, and responding to art.
For this particular project, we painted landscapes with gold leaf by looking at a lot of different landscapes. I utilized whole group and small group discussions with Visual Thinking Strategies before they started drawing.
What are Visual Thinking Strategies?
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a system that uses a student-centered facilitation method to create inclusive discussions. Through these strategies, students are able to increase their comprehension.
It is a very simple activity designed to build students' background knowledge and develop thinking skills that use detail to enhance understanding. I like this method because it is targeted at developing creativity and thinking skills. Below are simple steps to utilizing VTS in your classroom:
Select an interesting painting or picture.
Have a copy of the painting or picture for students to see.
Show the picture and ask students to silently think about what they see.
After a minute, open up the question to the room, "What do you see in the picture?"
Next, ask students to share differing opinions and provide justification.
The discussion goes on until students have shared all they can about the picture.
Students created landscapes and were given a choice about adding gold leaf to their work. Not all students chose to add gold leaf, but they all did learn how to apply it. When they chose not to add it to their work, they practiced the application on a scratch sheet of paper.
Painting Landscapes with Gold Leaf
Supplies needed:
Official paper (paper that will be used for their final project)
Acrylic paints (multiple colors, white and black)
Gold leaf sheets
Glue
After using the VTS method and looking at a lot of landscape pictures, the students chose one to depict. They did several practice versions before choosing one to use as their final work.
They all did something different and were given a lot of freedom to make decisions throughout the process. Then, they drew their final choice on their official paper and painted it with acrylic. They outlined their landscape with white and black paint, finally adding gold leaf.
This is a project that has so many learning points all wrapped in one. From learning how to use discussion with art to being creative while drawing their own pictures, students are incorporating many subjects without realizing it.
You can use regular school glue and a paint brush to apply gold leaf. No special glue is required for 5th grade level work. These students were given a choice about whether they wanted to add gold leaf to their landscapes. We framed these and used them in our school-wide art exhibit.
Use the suggestions above to complete a variety of projects throughout a given school year and with several different types of pictures. You can also incorporate books to enhance the lesson even more!