Simple Perspective

I found this cool print on Pinterest HERE and used it to create a fabulous farm scene with my 1st graders.  We talked about using diagonal lines for simple perspective so the land looks like it is coming towards you. I talked about FOLK ART , but you could also reference ROMERO BRITTO as a tie in to this lesson. They did a step by step directed drawing with me at the board.  We sketched ours on 9 x 12 white drawing paper.

Here's how we drew it...

1.  Draw a soft wavy horizontal line across the middle of the paper for the horizon.
2.  Draw a rectangle on the horizon line.  Draw another rectangle beside the first one.
3.  Draw a triangle on top of the second rectangle, then a horizontal line to the edge of the paper for the roof.  Add the barn door details.
4.  Add a silo.  (Now, I grew up on a farm and had to explain that this is where farmer's store their grain)
5.  Add stylized trees, and a fence on the horizon line.
6.  Start with a vertical line that is in the middle of the horizon line and goes straight down to the bottom of the page.  There will be two more lines on each side of this vertical line.
7.  Move over a bit and draw a diagonal line to the corner of the paper.
8.  Move over a bit more and draw the last line to the side of the paper.  REPEAT this on the other side.
9.  Draw one horizontal line in each section to break up the space.

10.Once drawn, we traced all pencil lines with a black sharpie and added simple patterns and shapes to our sections of land, also with our sharpies.

11.  Then they colored the barn, fence, tree trunks, and patterns pressing hard with the crayons so the paint would resist.

12.  We added patterns to the silo, and trees with crayons as well.  Be sure to use colors other than green for the trees so they will show up when you paint the trees!

13.  The last step was to paint over the crayon work.  I encouraged all kinds of colors...even for the sky.

Each student was VERY successful with this lesson and understood simple perspective when finished!  Check out our results!