Cade4006's artwork

from school project "van Gogh Trees"

About this School Project (van Gogh Trees)

Students in 4th and 5th grade learned how to show distance and space in an artwork by painting trees. Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter from the late 1800s. Poor van Gogh was a troubled man, who was only happy when he was painting. He painted many beautiful, cheery things. Van Gogh only lived 37 years, but painted nearly 900 paintings in that time-most in the last two years of his life. He became famous after his death, when his sister-in-law Johanna traveled the world to convince galleries to show Vincent's work. Van Gogh's most famous painting, "Starry Night," 1889, shows an early morning, dark sky swirling above a peaceful village. "Starry Night" and van Gogh's many paintings of trees, served as inspiration for this lesson.
Van Gogh's style is "painterly" meaning loose, with brush strokes showing. Van Gogh used very thick paint, sometimes squishing paint straight from the tube onto the canvas.

Students were to show space and texture in their work using these techniques:
Overlapping leaves of many colors to show density in the tree
Variety of colors added to all parts of the painting, to create visual movement and texture

Novak fourth grade students show off their artistic skills in these beautiful paintings.
I am so proud of them!