4th grade landscapes

4th grade artists studied the artwork of Albert Bierdstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902). He was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. We talked about how to mix tints (lighter versions) and shades (darker versions) of our back ground color. We mixed five different values of one color, from white to really dark. We painted our background first and using only a wet brush, blended the values together to make a seamless gradient. Some students choice to use old toothbrushes to splatter paint stars in their night time skies. The following week we practiced using a fan brush to paint realistic trees, and then finished our paintings.