Flowing with rivers.

Enduring Ideas

We can learn about rivers by studying them on site, through environmental study, and through works of art created by artists who have represented them throughout time. We can share our knowledge by making art about river environments and by becoming aware of and working to protect these natural resources.

Art Exemplars

Rollin Pickford, San Joaquin River Bluffs, 1958. Watercolor on paper. www.lineonline.org/Rollin.html

Thomas Cole, The Oxbow: View from Mt. Holyoke after a Thunderstorm, 1836. Oil on canvas. www.artchive.com/artchive/C/cole/oxbow.jpg.html

Lesson Overview

Students compare how artists have depicted rivers in paintings, using different styles, compositions, subject matter, colors, and techniques. They create a watercolor landscape that includes a river.

Artistic Behaviors

1. Investigating historical and contemporary artists who have painted river environments, and how they reflect their era and culture.

2. Expressing thoughts, feelings, and responses to the sights and sounds of a river.

Materials

audiotape of river sounds (available at nature stores), 1" (2.5 cm) flat, 1 medium round #12 watercolor brush, watercolors, water container, water, pencil, viewfinders (slide holder 2 x 2" [5 x 5 cm] or cut paper with 1 x 1" [2.5 x 2.5 cm] window), 12 x 18" (30.5 x 46 cm) drawing or watercolor paper, paper towel, small scratch paper for testing colors, newspapers for desk or sponge for cleanup. For onsite work: drawing board, clothespins

Guiding Inquiry

* What kind of mood or feeling does San Joaquin River Bluffs present? (cold, quiet, cheerful, brittle, sparse backwoods landscape)

* What color scheme is used--warm or cool, dull or bright, monochromatic? (warm yellows, cool blues and greens, somewhat dulled)

* Describe how the artist used pattern to represent trees and bushes. (many simplified, rounded, repeated shapes)

* Describe how you think he got his idea: observation, imagination, or memory. (observation)

* Contrast the riparian wilderness with the distant agricultural area. (Wilderness is natural, agricultural area is bulldozed flat and cleared of natural vegetation.)

* Compare Pickford's work with Thomas Cole's The Oxbow noting the foreground, middle ground, and background in these works. (Both are similar with clear distinction of foreground, middle ground, and background.)

* Discuss horizon, eye-level, viewpoint (straight-on, bird's-eye view) and compare or contrast the paintings of Cole and Pickford in this light. (In both the eye level is high, looking down, a bird's-eye view.)

Guiding Expression

* Play a tape or CD of river sounds. Have students use crayon and 5 x 8" (13 x 20 cm) sheets of paper to make five-minute drawings about what they hear (abstract or realistic). If possible, arrange a field trip to sketch at a river site. If a river is lacking, have students make visual notes/sketches from photographic images. Fold a paper two times to make four squares so students can sketch quickly in each square.

* Demonstrate the use of the viewfinder to locate and limit an area of landscape. Sketch the river landscape lightly and quickly with pencil on 12 x 18" (30.5 x 46 cm) paper. Demonstrate simple watercolor techniques. Instruct students to paint large areas with 1" (2.5 cm) brush (sky, hills, river) and finish small areas and details with medium #12 brush (trees, bushes, grasses). Point out the river's colors, reflections, play of light, and current.

About the Artist

Rollin Pickford is a preeminent watercolor painter of California's San Joaquin Valley. Born in Fresno in 1912, he grew up in the industrial farm belt, living and painting there all his life. He spent much of his artistic life interpreting a vanishing landscape, documenting the rivers, farms, and foothills, the orchards and irrigation canals before urban sprawl turned them into highways, housing developments, and malls. The loss of the treasured landscape he knew and loved saddens Rollins.

At times, he likes to use the elements to finish a painting: when it rains, he will let the raindrops sprinkle through the sky; when there is dense fog, it keeps the paper damp enough to give his work a foggy illusion; and on frosty mornings his paint will crystallize to leave delicate patterns. At the age of 92 he still paints five or six hours a day.

WEB LINK

Visit www.davis-art.com/schoolarts for examples of student artwork, additional questions, and activities for environmental awareness,.

Heather Anderson is a retired art teacher, formerly with Fresno City College in Fresno, California.