Submitted by Patti
Caiola
Lesson: Ancient Japanese Landscape Scrolls
Grade Level:
4th – 6th
(can be adapted either up or down)
Time
Needed: Three one-hour class periods.
(Day 1, intro and drawing with pencil; Day 2,
outline in black marker and continue to color; Day 3,
complete coloring, autograph and frame)
Description:
Students will be introduced to the Japanese
style of art and design in this lesson using simple
shapes and design. Students will create their own land in which they will rule
as the Emperor/Empress with a palace, crops, farmer,
farmer house, water source, light source, and nature. Cross-Curriculum with Social Studies/Foreign
Language.
Materials:
Preparation:
Japanese art reproductions, teacher made
example of colored Japanese landscape, any story
related to Japanese culture, Japanese to English
alphabet (from a library book), Japanese architecture
photo/poster/website. Artist: Hakusai
Vocabulary: Ancient Japan, Japanese, house, pagoda, depth,
perspective, horizon line, near, far, palace, Mt.
Fuji, and environment.
Procedure:
- Draw
5 or 7 overlapping hills, starting on the bottom
and working up to the top of the paper. Start on one side of the paper; end your hill on the
bottom. Hill
#2 starts on the opposite side of the paper and
ends in the middle of hill #1.
Repeat. (Reference: Japanese landscape scrolls that use
overlapping)
- Build
your palace on one of the top hills.
Start simple with squares; add fancy
triangle Japanese style roof, door, gate, windows,
towers, flags, etc. (Reference: Japanese
architecture)
- Every
emperor’s needs a farmer to grow food for you
and your people. Create a house in the Japanese style for
your farmer on the hill of your choice. Using lines, create rows of crops on one of
your hills near your farmhouse.
- Create
a river near the crops so they can grow.
Emphasize the perspective used in drawing a
river; far away should be narrow and the river
grows wider as it flows closer to the viewer.
- Create
the sky so the crops have a light source to go
with their water source.
It can be mid-day, sunrise, sunset, night.
- Create
a road that leads up to your palace, it can be
paved with brick or stones.
- Using
colored pencils, color your land, palace, farm,
sky and water.
Try different colors and textures for each
hill. Add any other elements to your land in the Japanese
tradition. (Samurai
warriors storming the palace, fields of flowers,
birds, dragons, roads, animals, etc.)
(Reference: Japanese landscape art)
- Using
a Japanese to English character alphabet, have
students vertically sign their works in Japanese.
Use Sumi brushes and ink, black markers, or
black colored pencils.
(Reference:
Japan to English alphabet from library book
copies for each student)
Let students practice their names on scrap
paper.
- Take
two thick strips of black construction paper and
glue one to the back of both the top and the
bottom of the scroll.
This will act as the frame for the ancient
scroll. Using
string or ribbon, have students roll their scrolls
and tie. You
could try making black paper loops lengthwise
along the top and the bottom of the paper to hang,
dowel rods painted, many possibilities to
“frame” and hang the artwork.
Possible
Adaptations:
Crayon resist, painting, printmaking/carving
their name into a “stamp” with Artgum erasers,
painting, and markers.
Resources
Japanese Art Reproductions
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