Moonlight and Starry Skies

For this project, we reviewed the elements of landscapes, then took a deep look at two pieces by Vincent Van Gogh: Green Wheat Field with Cyprus and The Starry Night. We discussed how both paintings were painted from the same general location; but how the perspective is different, one being painted from the ground level, and one being painted from a tower window. We looked at the movement of his paint lines and how it brings the night sky to life. Students used crayon to create impressionistic lines and shapes for their night sky. They then washed overt their work with watered down blue tempera and dabbed the paint off, revealing the colors beneath. To create their landscape silhouette, they were allowed to choose the setting (city or countryside) and cut shapes from black and light gray construction paper to create the illusion of depth by layering the papers.