Ted Harrison Style Paintings

Here are the paintings of my Grade 5's annual Ted Harrison style paintings. He's one of the most popular Canadian artists and art teachers love teaching his landscape lessons because they're so bright and accessible to different abilities. 

I've posted the lesson previously HERE and HERE. I sometimes mix up what type of paint I use with the kids to see the different results. This time we used tempera pucks. Make sure you have white so the students can create different tints. They sketched out their landscape on heavy white paper. Then outlined everything with a Sharpie. They painted these using the ultra convenient tempera pucks. They do dry to a dry, chalky finish which I don't love. But with large classes this type of paint is so much easier, especially if you have little time for clean-up between classes. 

Some Grade 5 results:

Ted Harrison style landscapes

My Grade 4 class recently finished these acrylic landscape paintings inspired by one of Canada's most well-known artists, Ted Harrison. The timing of this project was so strange as Mr. Harrison passed away the day after I introduced this lesson to my students (he was 88 years old).

His work is great for upper elementary students as it's a perfect introduction to stylized landscape art. His art is colourful and accessible. Ted Harrison came originally from England and moved to the Yukon (a Canadian territory) where he taught art. He was inspired by the northern landscapes and life in the Yukon.

Image Source

My students looked at a slideshow of his work as well as a couple of interviews of him on Youtube.

They designed their own stylized landscape, making sure to include a background, middle ground and foreground. They could also include buildings, animals and/or people.

We used acrylic paint- I love the small bottles from the dollar store. They're much easier to distribute paint from as opposed to large class size bottles. 

Students were encouraged to create value changes or gradations and tints: adding white gradually to one colour.

Once dry, everything was outlined with a jumbo Sharpie.

Ted Harrison Style Landscapes

Ted Harrison is one of the most famous living Canadian artists. He is known for his colourful and stylized paintings of Northern Canada, in particular, the Yukon.

Grade 6 students looked at a slideshow of his work as well as books illustrated by him ("The Cremation of Sam McGee" is a good one). Then they drew their own 'layered landscape' utilizing his style of wavy lines, unusual colours, and simplified shapes. 

They had to include a background, middle ground, and foreground.



"Land and Sea", Ted Harrison, 1989



Looking through landscape photography books, students drew a simplified landscape.

then outline the drawing with permanent marker...

or, wax crayons....

Paint using gradations and tints, with an emphasis of unusual colours...

We used tempera discs with lots of water.

I demonstrated how to gradually add white to get a gradation of values...

Ta da!