Wild Weather Landscapes

A Web Quest for Eighth Grade Art Students

Introduction:

You are an artist, who specializes in wild weather paintings.  Through this Webquest, you will be a storm chaser, and check out all the wild weather photos to find images to include in your latest work of art – a landscape painting.

The Task:

An artist often uses reference material when creating art, rather than just drawing from his or her head.  You are here as an artist to learn more about how artists paint weather and show Space and Perspective in Landscapes, and gather at least 3 images you can use as visual reference for your painting, which will depict something of the wild weather you witness.  Your goal in the computer lab is to explore Space in a painting through a PowerPoint Presentation, visit the Birmingham Museum website, answer the questions in the handouts, collect at least 3 images of high resolution, and put them into a Word document to print out for use in the Art Room.

The Process:

1. Check out how other artists paint the weather and show space in a painting using the Painting Presentation.  Answer the questions about each slide on the Weather Painting Handout.  This handout is worth 90 points as a misc  grade, so look carefully and THINK before you answer!

2. Travel to the Birmingham Museum and Perspective Drawing to learn more about how an artist creates Space in a painting.  Make sure you check out HORIZON LINE, AERIAL PERSPECTIVE, and LINEAR PERSPECTIVE.  Answer questions # 1-4 on the Birmingham Museum Perspective Handout while on this site.  This will be worth 45 points as a miscellaneous grade.

3.  Learn how check the resolution of an Internet image, to save an image to your H://, and then insert in into a Word document.

4. Using the links in the Wild Weather Resources below, find at least 3 photos to use as references for your landscape.  There must be a horizon line, foreground, middle ground and background in your finished landscape.  You can find photos with all three parts and use pieces of each, or find different pieces in different photos.  Don’t forget to go to the Wild Weather Skies sites! Click to see sample pictures saved for visual reference.

5. REMEMBER, you are not here to find a picture to COPY, but pictures to INSPIRE. Each photo you find must be saved to your H:/ drive, and then when you have all you need, inserted into a Word document.  Once you have found your photos and inserted them, use the chart on the Birmingham Museum Perspective Handout to answer #5, identifying the different types of perspective you see in the photos.

6. The last step - print your Word document with your pictures on the Color Laser printer, following directions.

Wild Weather Resources

Please note that in many of these sites you must click on the image to get a high resolution photo

(Click on underlined words to go to the Internet sites)

Landscapes around the world:

Grand Canyon

A great website for weather photos!

China from Bigfoto.com

NYC Pictures from Bigfoto.com

Amusement Park Photos from Barry’s Free Photos

The World in Photos - click on a region to look at the images

Cepolina. com - Use the list at the right side of the screen to click on a geographical area for images

Mountains around the world

Openviews.org in the UK - This site has beautiful photos in different categories: Leicestershire Landscapes, Trees, Cityscapes/Urban

Regard-it.com - Landscape photos from all over the world including the Grand Canyon and France

The UK Landscape.com - Landscape photos from the United Kingdom – you must click on the images TWICE to get  to the large images

Cityscapes of various United States cities

Wallpaper images from DavidM.org - Images from Japan – use the wallpapers – click to get to the larger image

Geocities.com - Click on the galleries in this free site to see the photos and save them

Wild Weather Skies

Tornadoes

Severe Weather Photos from Australia

Oz Thunder brings you more wild weather photos from Australia

Severe Weather from Weatherpix.com

The Product:

In art, you will create a landscape painting, drawing on the information you gather today and our discussion of art in class.

Evaluation:

The Perspective Handout will be graded as a Misc Grade - 45 points

The PowerPoint Painting Presentation Handout will be graded as a Misc grade - 90 points

The final project, your painting, will be graded using a rubric to evaluate it - 100 points.