Ted Harrison Landscape Art Project
Ted Harrison was an English-Canadian artist known for his work in landscape, colour and shape. This bright project is a celebration of his work. We do this project at the end of our Canada unit and after having spent some time diving deeper into our own province of British Columbia.
Duration: 45-60 minutes
Materials:
Card stock (1/2 sheet per student)
White pastel
Tempera paint (we use pucks)
Scissors
Glue stick
Silhouette
Use any animal native to your area.
We live in coastal BC so we use orcas, salmon and bears but you can choose an animal that makes sense with your landscape.
Procedure:
Plan out your landscape. Our examples here are meant to representative of our coastal BC region so we have mountains, rivers and oceans. Your landscape can look anyway you want.
Use the white pastel to draw your lines on the card stock. It’s best not to use pencil first, as it will show through the white. Ted Harrison’s work has very fluid, smooth lines that don’t have harsh corners. The pastel should be smooth so that it acts as a barrier for the paint.
Paint inside the white lines with tempera paint. We often do warm colours for the sky and cool for the land and water. If you look at many of his pieces, there is a lot of blue, purple and red as he painted a lot of northern scenes. This is inspired work, so use colours that would compliment your landscape.
Cut out the silhouette and glue it onto your landscape.
*I realize the orca isn’t a silhouette, but we wanted to make sure our audience knew exactly what animal it was
Looking for resources to support your Canada unit?
