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A Rainy Day Stroll With Afremov

Leonid Afremov inspires bold colorful landscapes.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • White Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Introduce students to the works of artist Leonid Afremov. Note that he paints using palette knives. Discuss other artists such as van Gogh and Rembrandt who used palette knives to create vividly textured paintings in the "impasto" style, which can give a painting a 3-D appearance, emphasize light and shadow, and give the impression of movement.

  • Step 2

    Have students create works that depict a strong emotion using thick application of acrylic paints and visible brush strokes or palette knife textures.

  • Step 3

    Invite students to present their artwork and talk about the feelings they were trying to convey. How did their design create the feeling of dimensional texture and movement and convey emotions? How would the work be different if they had used a thinner paint or a technique with no visible strokes?

Standards

ARTS: Analyze ways that artistic components and cultural associations influence ideas, emotions, and actions.

ARTS: Describe what an image or performance represents.

LA: Cite specific evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the illustrations and text.

LA: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence using organization and style appropriate to the task, purpose and audience, so listeners can follow the line of reasoning.

Adaptations

Encourage a review of artwork by Chagall and Modigliani, who influenced Afremov. How are they similar? Different?

Create a 3-D work of art using pieces of crumpled recycled magazine pages or newspaper. Glue them onto paper and paint over them.

Afremov depicts a lot of rainy scenes in his work. Talk about how rain can be symbolic of many things: cleansing, transformation, purity, sadness, etc. Try to think of scenes in books or movies that exemplify one or more of these themes.