Van Gogh Line Drawings

I know that Van Gogh can be a little overdone in elementary school art, but I find that students can relate to his artwork easily because they tend to think that all art should be an exact representation of something, and are easily awed at Impressionist art because it is only an "impression" and not an exact copy.  Also, Van Gogh is a great artist to study when working on line drawings and texture. 

For this assignment students began by watching the video, Who is The Artist: Cezanne, Van Gogh, Seurat (which I have to say, is NOT the best video for elementary age students, but we made it through).  Next, I played the PowerPoint on the TV screen that showed three of Van Gogh's paintings on a slideshow.  The students were to choose one of the three paintings to duplicate through a line drawing.  

I taught the students how to make a simple plan on their paper before adding the color by dividing the space into sections where they will then add the lines and color later.  This is an important skill to get the students to think about simplifying an object and not becoming overwhelmed at trying to duplicate the subject.  It also helps the students to break-up a subject into shapes, drawing the easiest first and adding the complicated details later.  Next, the students used markers to add a variety of lines to each section of their paper, trying to use the colors that Van Gogh used in his original paintings.