Corot's luminescent landscapes.

Art educators generally associate the name Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) with his wondrous vivid landscape paintings. The following Corot inspired project is especially appropriate for primary grades who learn about Corot's work by incorporating his technique of impasto painting into a landscape work while capturing the essence of light. This project takes advantage of using oil-based modeling clay to imitate the impasto technique used by Corot.

Introducing Impasto

Corot often incorporated white oil paint into his colors to highlight light and give his paintings a feeling of atmosphere. His earlier paintings were painted using a technique called impasto, which is Italian for "mixture or thick color"--paint applied thickly to a canvas or panel. The impasto technique employed by Corot can be explained to children with the analogy of thick paint to look like icing on a cake.

After viewing two to three different examples of Corot's work, children create their own impasto landscapes using the impasto technique which reflects a light airy feeling reminiscent of Corot's earlier works.

Learning to Layer

The children did a preliminary landscape drawing in oil chalk once I explained foreground, middle-ground, and background. They could draw their landscapes from direct observation around the school campus or copy one of Corot's. This preliminary drawing gave them a sense of how Corot layered, blended, and built up colors to show various areas of his paintings.

After children completed an oil chalk drawing of a landscape, I gave them a piece of poster board and pieces of oil based clay--plus extra amounts of cream color or white to emulate Corot's style of highlighting with white.

Transforming the Drawing

I asked children to copy their oil chalk drawing using oil-based clay. Before applying each color, the children blended the clay colors in their hands, using white to blend in for highlights. Children blended a creamy white to blue for the sky as well as adding a creamy white to shades of green to illustrate the natural surroundings they were representing in their own landscapes.

Through Thick and Thin

I reminded them to start from the background first and build up the clay from the background to the foreground. They smoothed the clay down flat as they worked.

The children then created interesting textures throughout their own landscape paintings by using toothpicks and their fingers.

After completing the clay landscapes children shared their work with the class and compared the clay landscapes with the oil pastel drawings. They noted the difference in being able to incorporate a thick impasto method versus a flat method used in the drawing. This art of the project demonstrated to children the difference in technique that was so important to Corot early in his painting career.

This project taught the first grade to understand the artistic technique of impasto and to more fully appreciate the ideas and luminescent landscape paintings of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.

Materials

each student needs:

* a 6 x 8" (15 x 20 cm) piece of poster board

* small amounts of various natural colors of oil-haled modeling clay (such as browns, black, greens, blues, yellows, and white)

* white paper

* oil chalk

Dianne Turner is an associate professor of art education at California State University in Bakersfield, California.