Silhouette Sunset Painting

In this lesson students will develop skills in colour blending by creating a sunset painting. Students will create a blended colour background and then create a simple paper stencil to paint a silhouette over the top of their sunset.

Lesson 1

Students look at examples of colour blending in sunset paintings. Discuss the process in blending colours – moving from lighter colours to darker colours and blending in-between to create a gradient.

Students begin by creating their sunset by blending between yellow, red and then blue paint on the whole page of cartridge paper. Once the page is completely painted leave to dry.

Students will then create the silhouette which will be painted over the top of their sunset. You may want to choose a theme such as “African landscape” or “Australian landscape”. Students choose an animal which fits into the theme and draw its silhouette on another piece of paper. Students will then cut out this drawing in a single cut.

Using their cut-out piece of paper students lay this over their sunset. They will then use a sponge with black paint and dab this over their paper stencil. Remove the paper stencil and students should have their silhouette over their sunset. Students can then paint in extra landscape details in black such as the ground and trees.

Reflection:

Discuss as a group what happened when the colours were being blended. How did students get a nice gradient? What techniques did they use? Also discuss the use of a stencil and what the positives of using a paper stencil may be over painting directly over their sunset.

Extension:

Students may use spray paints with their stencil instead of applying the paint with a sponge. Older students may also create more intricate stencils with a stanley knife.

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