Starry Night, a Van Gogh Crayon Resist

Lesson Plan Submitted by: Cindy Slotnick
Elementary Art Teacher at Schools 4, 8, & 9 in Linden, New Jersey. (USA)
Grades: K-5th grades

Procedure:

Takes approximately 2-3 art periods.

A reproduction of Van Gogh's Starry Night is shown to the class and critiqued. Ask about the lines Van Gogh uses in the sky to show movement. Discuss foreground and background and what objects are in them.

Students are given crayons; neon colors are even better. They were asked to draw, pressing hard, stars and moon like Starry Night and to repeat shapes around them so that it looks like the stars were radiating. Swirls were added to the picture. Have students put name in crayon at the top so that you'll be able to see it when finished. Students will paint over crayoned sky with black paint (crayon resist) and let dry. The wax in the crayons will "resist" the paint and the paint will fill in areas that weren't colored.

Next lesson, discuss what a silhouette is. Using the black 6"x18" (15 x 46 cm) paper, have students draw a contour base line in chalk and attach mountains, houses, skyline of any type and then cut around the outside edges, being careful not to cut off the baseline. (See image below for example)

Using glue, glue the side that has the chalk showing, then turn over and place at the bottom of your crayon resist painting. Voila! A beautiful Starry Night.

As an extension, students may visit the Van Gogh Museum website and follow the virtual reality tour on their monitors. All they have to do is click on the Google Streetview man (The orange block figure in the center of the page). They can move around the museum and see Van Gogh's art as it's seen by museum visitors.

Materials:

• 12x18" (30.5 x 46 cm) white Drawing Paper

• Neon Crayons

• Watered- down black Acrylic Paint

• 6x18" (15 x 46 cm) black Construction Paper

• White Chalk

• White Glue