Art Lessons on The Majestic Mountains (and Van Gogh's Landscape)

And the earth We have spread out, and have placed therein firm mountains, and caused to grow therein all kinds of things in due proportion. 

(Qur’an: Al-Hijr 15, 19)

Year 1 has been learning about ‘Wet and Dry’ environments. The students all know that Allah is the Creator of all the natural environments and to be thankful for these creations of Allah.

From these environments we have started looking at mountains. The following are the results of their visual arts lessons.

Torn paper mountains from the Scholastic book 'Art Projects that Dazzle and Delight K-1'

This is also from 'Art Projects that Dazzle and Delight 2-3'

For this painting, I didn't follow the instructions from the book as I thought it was too fiddly and complicated for Year 1 (since it was aimed at Years 2-3). I love how these paintings turned out - just look at how realistic those clouds look! 

Although the book didn't say so, I've found the painting that the lesson was modeled on, and to my delight, it was a Van Gogh called 'Landscape at Saint-Remy'.

How to paint a mountain landscape scene:

1. Study the lines in the above painting.
2. Draw in pencil a horizontal line across the page then draw the mountains on the line.
3. Paint the mountains a dark green.
4. Use the green to make short upward strokes (lines) in foreground grass area.
5. Mix yellow into the green paint and keep painting in the grass.
6. Mix white and the dark green and again use this to paint the grass.
7. Paint the sky blue.
8. Swirl in white paint for the clouds (while the sky blue paint is still wet).