John Pfahl: Having Fun with Landscape Photography

For Grades K–6

Visual Arts

Featuring John Pfahl's Moonrise over Pie Pan, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, 1977, and Great Salt Lake Angles, Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1977
Students will learn about horizon lines in traditional landscapes, shadows and reflected light, and John Pfahl's Altered Landscapes. They will also create alterations of landscape photographs.

John Pfahl: Having Fun with Landscape Photography

For Grades 7–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; Mathematics; Science; Technology; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring John Pfahl's Moonrise over Pie Pan, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, 1977, and Great Salt Lake Angles, Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1977

John Pfahl used creativity, strategic placement of objects, changing vantage points, and a sense of humor to create his Altered Landscape series of photographs. Students will learn about his artist statements and methods and then create their own series of photographs and artist statements.

Language of Art: The Written Word

For Grades 9-12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring Lesley Dill's Divide Light #2, 2002

Lesley Dill creates sculptures that combine words and objects that are often inspired by poems or literature. This lesson focuses on a work of art inspired by "Divide Light," a poem by Emily Dickinson, and offers activities for artmaking and writing.

Let’s Go Exploring!

For Grades K–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; Mathematics; Science; Technology; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring Gustave Courbet's La Source de la Loue (The Source of the Loue), ca.1864
This lesson plan uses activities that involve the sense of touch to inspire students to discuss their own experiences and to make art and write about those experiences in both informational and narrative styles and from a variety of perspectives. Additional activities can connect easily to science curriculum through the study of habitats and geology.

Lines! Shapes! Words! Print!

For Grades K–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring Georges Braque's Job, 1911
Georges Braque used simplified lines and shapes combined with words to make Job, which depicts a man sitting at a desk. Students will learn about this work of art through observation and discussion, and explore making prints of their own using common classroom materials.

Meditative Drawings

For Grades 6–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring Agnes Martin's The Tree, 1965
Although Agnes Martin's artwork looks very simple, she was concerned with communicating ideas and feelings, used the natural world as inspiration, and often referred to the meditative qualities of making her art. In this lesson, students will learn about meditation and make art inspired by Martin’s The Tree.

Natural Materials

For Grades K–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; Mathematics; Science; Technology; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Featuring David Nash's Small Ladder, 1978
Students will learn that artists like David Nash use natural materials such as wood to create works of art that incorporate principles of design such as balance, repetition, rhythm, and unity. They will collect their own natural materials and create works of art demonstrating their understanding of these principles.

Paul Sharits: Thinking in a New Way about Movies

For Grades 3–12

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; Mathematics; Science; Technology; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language; Mathematical Practice

Featuring Paul Sharits's Frame Study 15: Study for "Specimen II," 1975
Information about 16mm films made by Paul Sharits is packed into his two-dimensional drawings on graph paper. Students will learn about how film works to understand how to translate Sharits's drawings into information about his films. They will also create their own moving works of art, such as flip books, movies, or animation, and generate related informational drawings.

Playing with the Grid

For Grades 3–8

Visual Arts; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening; Mathematics; Science; Technology; College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language; Mathematical Practice

Featuring Chuck Close’s Janet, 1992
This lesson plan explores how Chuck Close uses photography and a mathematical grid to create his large portraits. Hands-on activities encourage students to create using the grid, during which they will learn about variation, repetition, experimentation, mathematical ratios, and the art term value.

Putting It All Together

For Grades 3–5

Visual Arts

Featuring Louise Nevelson's Royal Game I, 1961, and Drum, 1976
In this lesson plan, students compare two sculptures by Louise Nevelson. The differences between painting and sculpture are emphasized, and hands-on techniques for making paper sculpture are included for the hands-on activity.