Reconstructed Landscapes

Happy New Year from the Education Department!

Starting now and continuing every month through our May opening, we will be posting popular family art activities from Owl Cottage and the Art on the Go Carts for you to try at home. We hope to inspire you to break out your art supplies on these dark winter days and create something special! 

Pleissner, Clearing, Wyoming, 1932

Project: Constructed Landscapes

The landscape is a favorite artist's subject, and we have many of these scenes on view at the Museum. For this project, I  "reconstructed" two of Ogden Pleissner's early landscape paintings.

Pleissner painted Clearing, Wyoming (above) on a dude ranch in Dubois, Wyoming in 1932, where he and his wife spent seventeen summers. He completed Autumn, Lyme, Connecticut (below) in 1935. Both paintings are remarkable because Pleissner made them during the Great Depression, when he struggled to make a living as an artist.

Pleissner, Autumn, Lyme, Connecticut, 1935

Project Time: Approx. 20 minutes (excluding drying time)

Make a landscape collage out of materials you might find in a craft drawer or around the house. A landscape is a picture that shows a scene by land or sea. It can be real or make believe, but the subject is always nature--for example, fields, hills, forests, or water.

Materials:
-White poster board or card stock
-Tacky glue
-Glue sticks
-Scissors
-Tablecloths
-Wipes
-Pom poms (trees, bushes)
-Craft fluffs (clouds, snow, leaves)
-Yarn and ribbon (grass, mountains, sky)
-Buttons (rocks, shrubs, leaves)
-Pipe cleaners (trees)
-Feathers (trees)
-Glitter (sunlight)
-Newspaper & magazine clippings (hills, grass)
-Construction paper & tissue paper (sky, ground)

Directions:
1. Spread out tablecloths or newspaper. (This activity can be messy.)
2. Start with the poster board or card stock. You may want to sketch an idea in pencil first.
3. Choose materials for your project (see suggestions above and add some of your own!).
4. Arrange materials on the paper and then secure materials using glue sticks or tacky glue.
5. When the glue has dried, place the landscape collage on display for everyone to see.


You can see my pictures "under construction" below. Enjoy, and let us know how your Constructed Landscape goes! Be sure to check back in February for another fun art project, and don't miss Pleissner Gallery the next time you're at the Museum.