Folk Art Landscapes

Who doesn’t love patterns?

Two things that my little artists are great at are Painting and Patterns!

In art class, we discuss various types of patterns, a complex pattern, and a motif? These fun folk art landscapes combine both concepts. We looked at the work of artist Heather Galler’s stunning folk art patterned paintings check out her paintings and be prepared to fall in love.

Painted Paper Art

6-DSCN1354

Studio Time

Day One: Using a pencil, create at least 15 diagonal lines (use a ruler for clean, sharp lines). Add various patterns in the shapes created by the lines. Next add trees, sun or moon, clouds and barns to the rest of the landscape.

Day Two: Use a sharpie and retrace over EVERYTHING. Once the black lines are complete use Crayola Construction Paper Crayons to add color in just the shapes not the backgrounds.

Day Three: Paint the background areas with liquid watercolor paints. I love using Crayola Mixing Watercolors- the colors are so vivid.

Supplies Needed:

• White Drawing Paper

• Black Sharpies

• Pencils

• Ruler

• Crayola Construction Paper Crayons

• Watercolors, water container and paintbrushes

• Placemat to protect table

Gallery

Lastly, when the paint was dry we matted them and added our painted paper placemats cut into strips for the border. Recycle- Reuse- Repurpose!

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2-DSCN1359
8-folk art barns

Keep On Creating!

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23 Comments

  • mrspicasso

    February 5, 2012 at 1:13 am

    I am so stealing this one!! Gorgeous!

  • Paintedpaper

    February 5, 2012 at 1:32 am

    Thanks! I had some of these at OAEA Conference. These are some more from my students. 🙂

  • Jen

    February 5, 2012 at 2:21 am

    Wow! The colors are so vivid. I love this lesson. I'm going to link it to lessons I love and I'm going to try!!
    http://drawthelineat.blogspot.com/p/lesson-i-love.html

    🙂 Thanks for sharing…

  • diditeach

    February 5, 2012 at 3:11 am

    These are so beautiful, can't wait to try !

  • lepemalestvari

    February 5, 2012 at 9:42 am

    This is awesome! So so warm in this cold winter!

  • Kristina

    February 28, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    HOW have I gone so long without checking out your blog??? You have so many great little tips in addition to your wonderful lessons. I've had some thin strips of painted paper for (ahem) years and use them occasionally to weave with on top of regular paper weaving, but still have so many left… never thought to use them as borders! Duh!!!

  • Paintedpaper

    February 29, 2012 at 11:51 am

    Thanks Kristina, I use the painted placemats for many things, but I love the look as borders, really easy too! 🙂

  • Mark

    March 14, 2012 at 11:25 pm

    Love it! Stealing this idea – thanks for the share!!

  • Shauna

    June 12, 2012 at 5:15 am

    What a wonderful art lesson. I can't wait to use it with my children! Thanks for sharing.
    Shauna

  • Anonymous

    August 11, 2012 at 12:06 am

    I am so excited for each and every student who has you as their teacher. I love that you are teaching them advanced art vocabulary as well as tying your themes to literature. I'm now a retired middle school teacher trying my hand at art for the first time in my life. I will refer back to your site many times. May God Bless You Richly!

  • OnegoArt

    March 16, 2013 at 7:51 pm

    Прекрасный урок!
    Мы часто используем масляную пастель и акварель вместе, но у вас такие ясные чистые работы! Душа радуется! Спасибо!

  • Anonymous

    August 20, 2013 at 4:38 am

    Beautifly done, thanks for sharing!

  • Anonymous

    December 20, 2013 at 1:33 am

    Thank you for sharing!

  • Anonymous

    February 18, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    Great idea for my Middle School artists. Thank you.

  • sarah carbin

    April 13, 2014 at 10:02 pm

    What a great idea for older kids! I teach arts and crafts at a church camp and have a hard time trying to think of good crafts for the 5th grade range.

  • black and white art prints

    May 1, 2014 at 6:29 am

    Thank you very much for this post. I was so much looking forward to it. It helped a lot when I recently captured my oil paintings. Now I'm really happy with the photographs paintings. Thanks a lot!

  • Stacie

    August 16, 2014 at 11:11 pm

    Hi, I love your site! Such inspiring lessons and bulletin board ideas. Do you mind if I use some of your art lessons, like this one and the “Blast Off”?

    Thank you for sharing your awesomeness! Stacie

  • Paintedpaper

    August 31, 2014 at 9:56 pm

    Thanks for the comments~ You def can borrow away!

  • Kathy

    February 4, 2015 at 9:37 pm

    I love the idea of framing these with the randomly painted strips with just a thin black liner. Marvelous finish to a beautiful lesson.

  • Anonymous

    November 18, 2015 at 4:01 pm

    Wonderful! Would this work just as well with oil pastels?

  • Paintedpaper

    December 10, 2015 at 12:02 pm

    Yes. 🙂

  • Orchidzbloom .?

    December 16, 2015 at 5:07 am

    I have been lovingly sent here by cassie Stephens and I am totally I inspired!!

  • Christine Holton

    March 1, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    Ohhhh thank you! I have been trying to teach fundamentals to a folk artist that works completely intuitively, but without attempting to change her beautiful natural style. Win!

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