During the fall semester, South High worked with the Hanover Theater to create various works that promoted their winter show “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” Every class at South High was engaged in some lesson inspired by the Grinch. For example, one Spanish class had discussions about the ways different cultures celebrate winter holidays. The art classes were tasked with creating a large-scale poster of the Grinch for the show. Each student in all the art classes designed at least one small square of the entire poster. As the squares were finished, they were attached together to create the final image. The finished poster was displayed in the hallway at South High leading up to the show and in the Hanover Theater lobby during performance nights.

I was inspired by that project to plan my unit on complementary colors. I also wanted to incorporate a bit of art history in terms of introducing the life and works of a famous artist. So I decided to have students recreate paintings by Vincent van Gogh as I knew many of his paintings primarily used complementary colors. Students would also learn how to paint using a simplified version of impasto style painting that mimicked van Gogh’s style. I thought this would be a good way to expose students to professional art work, as they had spent most of their time creating original works until that point. I also wanted to give students an opportunity for group work in a way that still allowed them time for individual input. So I designed this unit to have each student work independently on a section of a larger painting  by van Gogh that they would contribute to as a group.

The following pages reveal my lessons for this complementary colors unit. Within these pages you will find more information on the understanding goals, rationale, performance assessments, personalization, and curriculum standards for each lesson.

van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” – one of his paintings that my students recreated

van Gogh’s “Field of Poppies” – one of his paintings that my students recreated