We looked at the work of contemporary Dutch painter Ton Schulten (1938). He is loved for his colorful, vibrant landscapes depicting his native countryside, his use of horizontal and vertical lines which create a mosaic-like landscape made up of blocks of color, and his bright central light. His unique style of painting has been coined 'Concensism'.
Process:
After discussing his use of line and color we began to draw our own landscape. Utilizing the 'rule of thirds' (foreground, middle ground, background) we made our horizontal lines, added a few houses, and then made our vertical lines to create many squares. Like Schulten, we left the center of our landscape open, bright and airy and got increasingly dark as we moved out to the edges of our painting. We used warm colors to give our landscapes that central, bright light typical of Schulten's paintings. We thought carefully about how to make our houses and trees stand out against the background.
My 6-12 year old classes and adult class used acrylics and mixed their own colors and tints to expand their palette and made sure to repeat colors in order to create balance.
My younger class used oil pastels on colored construction paper, and first colored in the warm colors and then cool colors. A quick outline in black made their shapes and colors pop.
These are so beautiful and really entice the viewer to enter the painting!
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| 9-11 year olds. Acrylic |
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| 6-9 year olds. Acrylic |
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| Little class (4-5 year olds) Oil pastel on colored construction paper |
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| Adult class. Acrylic |