Viking Longship Watercolour Paintings

This is a great collaborative lesson if any of your Social Studies teacher 

teach about the Vikings. 

I've posted the steps to this lesson previously HERE and HERE.

I always love the results!  Grade 7-9

 

Viking Longship Watercolour Paintings

This is a wonderful drawing and watercolour lesson that I enjoy teaching. 

These were completed by Grade 7-9 students. 

I've posted about this lesson previously HERE and HERE.

I recommend using watercolour paper for best results. 

Students started with 9x12" watercolour paper. They all have laptops, so were able to research and look up photos of Viking longships independently. 

The Viking longship was, without a doubt, an utterly awesome vessel. In their longships, Vikings sailed to all sorts of far off places; like Greenland, Constantinople, and even as far as America. These were some mighty tough and durable ships then, each one capable of braving treacherous seas, facing terrifying storms, and overcoming deadly currents. Amazingly, the entire longship could be constructed with no other tool than an axe

We discussed the features of the ships including:  a sail and a mast, but they also had oars for rowing in case the wind disappeared. To steer the boat, they just had one oar at the back of the ship. Another fantastic feature was that the longboat was symmetrical and double-ended. This meant that the Vikings could reverse without having to turn the boat around. On board were a series of small rowing boats which meant that the Vikings could get to shore and explore without risking damage to the bigger ship. They were all made from planks of timber, usually oak, overlapped and nailed together. The ships were made watertight by filling the spaces between the planks with wool, moss or animal hair, mixed with tar or tallow. The ships were all the same long narrow shape, with shallow draughts. The prow (at the front of the ship) was often decorated with a skillfully carved dragon or snake head to make people fearful. Each ship had a big, brightly coloured square sail which was woven from wool. They were dyed red and had stripes or diamond patterns.

So students spent one class drawing their ship in pencil.

The next class, they outlined their ships using ultra fine tip Sharpies. Then they painted it all using watercolour. They used the wet-on-wet technique to paint the sky and water. 

Some of the finished longships:

 

Viking Longship Watercolour Paintings

My mixed Grade 7-9 class recently completed these watercolour paintings of Viking Longships. 

I taught this lesson about 3 or 4 years ago- you can see the steps HERE.

I really recommend using watercolour paper for this- it makes all the difference. This time I tried a 'budget student brand' watercolour paper and it was utter garbage! I mean, it worked enough but not as well as it could have. 

Some of the Grade 7 - 9 paintings:

Viking Longships

This was a super fun collaborative project I did with the Grade 7 Social Studies teacher at my school. He's a very creative teacher and is always looking for ways to incorporate art projects into his lessons. His students were studying the Vikings and their early exploration in Canada (the famous L'Anse aux Meadows site, dated circa 1000 AD, located in the Province of Newfoundland) 

L'Anse aux Meadows is the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside Greenland. It represents the farthest-known extent of European exploration and settlement of the New World before the voyages of Christopher Columbus almost 500 years later.

I was super stoked to teach a Vikings themed art lesson partly because I'm obsessed with the TV show "Vikings" on the History channel. It's a Canadian/Irish production and is beautifully filmed and brilliantly acted. The lead Viking, Ragnar, is amazing!

I showed the kids photos of ancient Viking longships. We learned their features and characteristics.

Then, on thick white paper, students started by drawing out their ship in pencil.

Then they outlined it all with Sharpies.

.

They had the option of using pencil crayons or watercolours to colour in the ship.

Then, I demoed how to mix and use watercolours in a wet-on-wet technique for the sky and sea. I encouraged them to have the sea a rough blue/grey colour as it's supposed to be the Atlantic ocean.

I loved how they all turned out. 

 

Of course I HAD to include Ragnar in my display, lol! 

I love walking past him everyday!! (and the artwork too, of course ;)