Lesson Plan
Watercolor Wave
Use Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" to inspire a fun watercolor resist painting with your students!
Grades:
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Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Use the watercolor resist technique.
- Apply shape and scale to a seascape.
This art lesson corresponds to California Visual and Performing Arts Standards:
- 1.3 Identify the elements of art in objects in nature, the environment, and works of art, emphasizing line, color, shape/form, texture, and space.
- 2.2 Demonstrate beginning skill in the use of art media, such as oil pastels, watercolors, and tempera.
- 2.3 Depict the illusion of depth (space) in a work of art, using overlapping shapes, relative size, and placement within the picture.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Tell students that today we will make an art project inspired by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.
- Show students "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" on the document camera. Explain that this was Hokusai's most famous print.
- With "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" still projected, ask students to use their fingers to trace the lines of the wave in the air. Then have them air trace the lines of Mount Fuji in the background.
- Ask students why Mount Fuji appears small in relation to the wave. Ask students if the angle of the boats suggests a feeling.