Focus on the fall harvest as you use Vincent van Gogh's techniques to create an original drawing with Crayola® Colored Pencils and Oil Pastels.

• 1.

  Think about how the weather affects spring planting and fall harvests. Imagine how the sky looks over a field that is ready for harvest. Is the weather sunny, or do the clouds look like rain? Is it day or night? Calm or windy? Which crops are ready? What colors do you see?

• 2.

  Find information about the life and painting style of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Many of his paintings depict scenes in Provence, the South of France. Look at his outdoor scenes such as Starry Night, The Sower, Wheatfield With Crow, and Field Near Auvers.

• 3.

  Using heavy white paper and Crayola Colored Pencils, sketch a harvest scene that resembles the bold images van Gogh used in his paintings. Be sure to show the sky as well as the fields.

• 4.

  Fill your harvest drawing with Crayola Oil Pastels using van Gogh's style of swirling brush strokes and brilliant colors.

Standards

• LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
• LA: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
• LA: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.
• SS: Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools to generate, manipulate, and interpret information.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• SS: Explore factors that contribute to one's personal identity such as interests, capabilities, and perceptions.
• VA: Intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of experiences and ideas.
• VA: Select and use the qualities of structures and functions of art to improve communication of ideas.
• VA: Describe and place a variety of art objects in historical and cultural contexts.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: Hello, Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher; Van Gogh: Up Close by Cornelia Hornburg
• Students investigate the life of Vincent van Gogh and the artwork that he produced. Who and what influenced van Gogh? What style did he use when painting? What materials did he use?
• Encourage students to explore other well-known artists from the time period that van Gogh worked. How does their work compare to van Gogh's?
• Students use their first painting to create a second. This second painting will be positioned in a different season than the first. How will the colors change? Will it be the same time of day? If not, how will the time alter the scene? Compare and contrast the two, identifying the season for each.