Elementary Teachers Guide
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Bringing the Outside In (Grades 3–7) Objective: Students learn about Emily Carr and how she represented the forests of British Columbia. Description of Activity: Students imitate Carr’s process by sketching outdoors and painting indoors. Duration: 2 sessions, 60 minutes each Background Information for Teachers: Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1871. From an early age she had a deep love of nature, which can be seen in her landscape paintings. She had a particularly keen interest in capturing the forests that characterize this region, and she preferred to observe her subject first-hand by travelling to the forest and working there. Sometimes she worked close to home, at Gold Stream Flats, approximately 18 kilometres from Victoria. Other times she went further afield, to places like Pemberton. Wherever she worked, Carr’s intention was to study the intense colours and textures of the trees, foliage, lakes and sky, and to observe the way that light, wind and weather affect how we see the world around us. She represented the landscape from many different perspectives: some of her paintings show the great cedar trees from a point of view directly below their branches, while others show only the tips of the trees, with the sky above as her main focus. Carr would sketch her subject, sometimes making numerous sketches of a single scene, then rework them later in her studio, using them as a basis for paintings. Preparation for Teachers: • Look at Red Cedar, 1931, A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935, and Above the Trees, c.1939. See Appendix A for reproductions. • Consider how Carr depicts the landscape, focusing on her perspective or point of view: where does Carr position the viewer in relation to the scene depicted? • Read the following excerpt from Carr’s journal (Appendix B) in which she discusses the importance of observing her subject first-hand. Materials for Students: • Reproductions of Red Cedar, 1931–32, A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935, and Above the Trees, c.1939 • Clipboards or drawing boards • Heavy paper • Oil pastels • Paint (tempera or acrylic) • Brushes • Water containers Process: Part I: • Show students two or three of Carr’s landscapes. • Have them describe what they see. What is Carr painting? From what perspective does she represent her subject? • Choose an outdoor area that is contained but diverse enough for students to spread out and sketch in different areas, such as a park or green space. • Assign students a variety of subjects and perspectives to sketch from: a single tree; a single tree sketched from below, looking up through its branches; a group of trees that fill the drawing surface so that no sky appears; a view in which the sky takes up more space than the land. • Have students make several sketches of their subject. Part II: • Have students examine the sketches they made and pick one that they like. • Invite students to use this sketch as the basis for a painting. • Display students’ sketches and paintings together. Discussion: • Ask students to describe their experience of sketching outdoors and painting indoors. What was it like to sketch outdoors? How was it different from painting indoors? • Ask students why they chose the sketch that they did for their painting. How did the different materials affect the way they treated their subject? Further Engagement: • Have students sketch a single scene outdoors at different times of day and in different types of weather. Discuss the ways that light, atmosphere and weather change the way we see. Appendix A: Bringing the Outside In Emily Carr Red Cedar, 1931 oil on canvas 110.0 x 68.5 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of Mrs. J.P. Fell VAG 54.7 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery Emily Carr A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth, 1935 oil on canvas 112.8 x 69.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.17 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery Emily Carr Above the Trees, c.1939 oil on paper 91.2 x 61.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.83 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery Appendix B: Bringing the Outside In November 28th, 1935: Working on a jungle. How I want to get that thing! Have not succeeded so far but it fascinates. What most attracts me in those wild, lawless, deep, solitary places? First, nobody goes there. Why? Few have anything to go for. The loneliness repels them, the density, the unsafe hidden footing, the dank smells, the great quiet, the mystery, the general mix- up (tangle, growth, what may be hidden there), the insect life. They are repelled by the awful solemnity of the age-old trees, with the wisdom of all their years of growth looking down upon you, making you feel perfectly infinitesimal—their overpowering weight, their groanings and creakings, mutterings and sighings—the rot and decay of the old ones— the toadstools and slugs among the upturned, rotting roots of those that have fallen, reminding one of the perishableness of even those slow- maturing much-enduring growths. No, to the average woman and to the average man, (unless he goes there to kill, to hunt or to destroy the forest for utility) the forest jungle is a closed book. In the abstract people may say they love it but they do not prove it by entering it and breathing its life. They stay outside and talk about its beauty. This is bad for them but it is good for the few who do enter because the holiness and quiet is unbroken. Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of An Artist. Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 1966, p. 297. Abstracting the Forest (Grades 3–7) Objective: Students make an abstract work of art, using Emily Carr’s paintings as an example. Description of Activity: Students reduce elements of a landscape to simple geometric forms and create a collage using black, white and grey construction paper. Duration: 1 session, 60 minutes Background Information for Teachers: At the turn of the twentieth century, many artists began to search for new ways of representing the world. They sought new styles, often moving toward abstraction. Characterized by an interest in simplified geometric shapes and colours, abstract art favours emotion, vision, light and form over realistic depiction. Emily Carr began to work in an abstract manner after studying in France in 1910. The work of French Post-Impressionist and Fauvist artists interested her, with its loose brushstrokes and vivid colours. After returning to Victoria, Carr pursued these ideas in her own work, taking further direction from the American artist Mark Tobey, who also worked in Victoria in 1928. Influenced by Cubism, Tobey used geometric shapes to portray subjects from many different angles, a strategy Carr adopted during this period. Preparation for Teachers: • Examine Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930, and Untitled, 1931–1932. Consider how Carr uses geometric shapes in these works. See Appendix C for reproductions. Materials for Students: • Reproductions of Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930, and Untitled, 1931–1932 • Flip chart • Markers • Photographs of trees from magazines or posters • Heavy paper • Black, grey and white construction paper • Scissors • Glue Process: • As a group, make a list of geometric shapes. • Show students Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930, and Untitled, 1931–1932. What geometric shapes (triangle, square, circle, etc.) do they see? Talk about the absence of colour. What is the effect of Carr’s decision to work in monochrome? • As a group, discuss the ways that different parts of the body can be imagined as geometric shapes. If a student’s head were a geometric shape, what would it be? How about the neck? An arm? • Have students examine images of trees collected from magazines or posters. If they were to transform the different parts of the trees into geometric shapes, what shapes would they use? • Ask students to imagine the forest without colour. Where are the dark places? Where is it light? • Have students use construction paper and scissors to create geometric collages of the forest. Discussion: • Display students’ work. Have them discuss which shapes they chose to use in their collages. What other shapes could they have used? How did their choice affect the appearance of their trees? How did they show light and dark? Discuss. Further Engagement: • Older students can explore one of the abstract art movements that influenced Carr. Use Ruthie Knapp and Janice Lehmberg’s Off the Wall Museum Guides for Kids: Modern Art (Worcester MA: Davis Publications, 2000). Have students paint a tree in the style of the movement discussed. Appendix C: Abstracting the Forest Emily Carr Untitled (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), c.1930 oil on paper 88.2 x 60.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.56 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery Emily Carr Untitled, 1931–1932 charcoal and oil on paper 46.0 x 30.0 cm Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr Trust VAG 42.3.160 Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery Documenting First Nations Cultures (Grades 5–7) Objective: Students investigate Emily Carr’s interpretation of First Nations cultures. Description of Activity: Students consider the ways in which the cultural meaning of an object can change when it is interpreted from outside by discussing Emily Carr’s paintings of totem poles and by drawing from a photograph. Duration: 2 sessions, 60 minutes each Background Information for Teachers: The First Nations communities of the Northwest Coast were a major source of inspiration for Emily Carr.