Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. by Lisa Tomash B eing born and raised on a farm in Iowa, it has been enjoyable teaching my students about an Iowa artist. Grant Wood was born on a farm near Anamosa, Iowa. He spent the first 10 years of his life there. He began drawing when he was a boy, using burnt match sticks like charcoal. Later, he studied art in Minneapolis, Chicago and Paris. Kayla, grade 6. McKennan, grade 6. Mary, grade 6. Katelyn, grade 6. Eventually, he returned to Iowa, where he drew the things he knew and loved best. He loved the farmland, the rolling hills and the fields of corn, beans and haystacks. He loved the people who farmed the land. Once he painted a picture that had a building with a gothic window in it. The two familiar people in front were his sister and his dentist. This was the painting that made him famous: American Gothic. Several years ago I wanted to do a perspective lesson with my sixththrough eighth-grade art classes. I developed a landscape project using Grant Wood’s paintings as an example. 18 This was a great opportunity to study an Iowa artist who did landscape painting and to study perspective. As part of the project, the students are required to include a barn in their picture. We begin with a lesson in perspective. As I show them how to draw a “practice” building using the rules of perspective, they follow along using pencils and rulers on newsprint. This activity enhances their visual perception by helping them realize they can show depth in a picture. In the next class, I show them pictures of barns, landscapes and, of course, Grant Wood paintings. We talk > > about the architecture of barns, including the fact that there are even round barns. We discuss the characteristics of a landscape picture, and Grant Wood’s style of painting. The students can choose to use a stylized approach, like Wood, or use a more realistic approach to portraying things in their picture. The students are inspired by Grant Wood’s paintings and pictures of real barns. We discuss what else could be in the picture, such as windmills, crops, silos, roads and trees. Each person gets an 12" x 18" piece of black paper. First, each student draws their barn, using pencil. I have found that sketching the outline of the other things in the composition with white chalk or oil pastel works well. Students can only use black and white photocopies of barns so they are forced to come x www.ar tsandactivities.com march 2010