Chinese Landscape

With this project, we talked about the translucency and value often seen in the mist of Chinese landscape paintings. First, we tore a sheet of paper several times. Then they held those torn pieces of paper onto another sheet of paper and gently chalked along the torn edge using two different colors. While still holding the torn paper there, they blended the chalk with their fingers. After removing the torn paper, mountain ranges were left along the torn edge. For the next class, we used black liquid watercolor to paint a couple cherry blossom trees, then we looked at traditional Chinese temples and how each tier gets smaller and smaller as you get higher up the building. We created the buildings by folding strips of paper to make small cubes and then drawing doors onto them. Students then added rooflines to their buildings. On the last day, we used Q-tips and pink paint to add blossoms to our trees and created a chop to put in the lower corner of our paper. The students used a piece of styrofoam to engrave their stylized initials onto the styrofoam and then printed them on their landscape.