Oil Pastels - Foreground, Middle ground, Background

Oil Pastels - Foreground, Middle ground,  Background

Lesson Summary

The objective of this lesson was to experiment with oil pastels and learn about foreground, middle ground, and background. In this lesson actual snow globes were present to allow for motivation of the students for their own snow globes. South Dakota artist Terry Redlin was discussed because his art work is a good example of foreground, middle ground, and background. Foreground is the are of the work that appears closest to the viewer, the background is the area that appears farthest away from the viewer, and the middle ground is the area between the background and middle ground. The class was shown examples of his art work as well as examples of the teachers' art work examples of the snow globes. The teachers also talked about techniques used with oil pastels. They informed us that you could blend colors together to create a different color, you could also blend a color with black or white to create shades and tints of the starting color. We were also taught that the harder you press with the oil pastels the dark the color will become and the easier it will be to blend. The requirements for our project were to include at least 2 elements or principles, to have foreground, middle ground, and background in the scene, and to include an object that is personal to you. For my personal object I chose to add the Christmas tree because it reminds me of the times my family has cut their own Christmas tree. I also added the snowman because I remember making them as a child and I still enjoying making snowmen when there is enough snow and it is wet enough. 

Extension Activity

An extension activity for this lesson would be based on the different seasons of the year. Students would create four separate globes, one for each season; summer, fall, winter, spring. Students would pick a scene of their choice as long is it is one that has notable changes each season to use for their globe. Examples of scenes could be a lake, the family home, or a park. After students picked their scene they would create their four globes depicting that scene in each of the four seasons.