Vincent Van Gogh

Next, we did a lesson on Vincent Van Gogh.  In this lesson, we looked at the famous painting "starry night."  Van Gogh uses a very specific technique in starry night that makes the tree look closer than the town.  I created this work on art during the lesson.  We took tissue paper and put it in a paste to get the tissue to look as it does.  We then used oil pastels to create the swirls and lines in the background.  Once we created our background, we cut out the foreground.  I create a barn, silo, and wind mill.  This artwork makes the stuff in the foreground look a lot closer than the swirls and tissue paper in the background.

I think a cool extension activity would be an introduction activity where you created what interests you have in the background and then put your picture or something important to you in the foreground.  This would be a great way for students to get to know you as a teacher or them as a student.