Before I gave each student their section of the larger van Gogh painting, I created a lesson to have them practice using complementary colors together as well as practice painting in the same impasto style as van Gogh. I had students draw yin/yang symbols and paint a base layer on the opposing sides using complementary colors, then add impasto style paint layers on top. This lesson proved to be a great exercise to help students identify complementary color pairs and see how they work together to show contrast. It also gave them the opportunity to practice painting in the impasto style to replicate van Gogh’s work before starting on their sections to recreate one of his famous paintings.

However, even after this exercise, I realized that some students still struggled to identify complementary color pairs as well as paint in the impasto style. I definitely noticed that many students, by the time they started painting their third yin/yang symbol, had improved greatly painting in the impasto style. Even still, those students, and especially the ones that struggled with impasto throughout the exercise, could have used more practice. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would have students create yin/yang symbols for all the complementary color pairs that can be made from the colors on the color wheel. As most students only used the primary and secondary colors in their pairs, having them create more yin/yang symbols would challenge them to work with the less-used tertiary colors as well.

I also realized that many students simply used black and white paint when creating their impasto style layers on top of their yin/yang symbols instead of mixing black and white with color to create the tints and shades. Not being able to create those tints and shades for the impasto style layers would prove to be an obstacle when painting their actual sections of van Gogh’s painting, as he uses many tints and shades in his paintings. I had modeled the impasto style of painting for the students on the Elmo projector: taking time to show how I mixed black and white with my colors to create the tints and shades, how I applied each tint and shade as a different layer in my yin/yang symbols, and how I spaced out my brush strokes so that each layer could show even as I painted on top of them. Next time, I think I should take more time to emphasize that each layer needs to be a tint or a shade of the base color and not just black or white. I need to also take more time to show how I spaced out my brush strokes so students can see through each layer I build. As students were working, I did spend time re-modeling painting in the impasto style by mixing tints and shades to individual students. However, I do see the benefit of emphasizing that step when I initially model for the entire class. Then perhaps I will not have to re-model for as many individual students.

Both periods that I taught this unit to reproduced van Gogh’s paintings much better than I had imagined. It is not that I had imagined my students would not do well with this project, but I was surprised at how well all the sections came together in the end. I had tried to preemptively address the issue of the sections possibly not aligning with each other by adding a border around each section and having each student’s painting overlap a bit into the next section. Even still, there were students who painted beyond the size limit I instructed and students who struggled to paint their sections proportionately. Next time, another way to preemptively address the alignment issue could be to have students trace some of the lines in their section to block out where certain objects should be painted, how large they should be painted, etc. This step could be another way to scaffold the lesson of recreation by showing students a tool to help them feel successful with their work. It would be a way to set them up for success rather than failure.

I had intentionally chosen two different paintings by van Gogh for this unit so each class would ultimately have different recreations. I wanted to limit students from comparing their paintings to their peers and feeling discouraged if one class’ work looked better than the other. I also wanted to prevent major confusion or loss of work during the painting process as having fifty very-similar sections being painted at the same time would be chaos. I do, however, see the value in using only one of van Gogh’s paintings as I found that the students who recreated “A Starry Night” felt more successful than the ones who recreated “Field of Poppies.” Perhaps that was because the first painting was more familiar to the students or perhaps because there were more clearly defined and bolder contrasting colors in the first painting so it was easier to recreate.

The students in the “A Starry Night” class were better able to accurately recreate van Gogh’s style than those in the “Field of Poppies” class and that first group of students expressed their confidence as such. However, I wonder if it would have been more beneficial for all the students to see the entire paintings first before starting to work on their own sections of it. They would have had a visual goal to work towards (with the ability to see where their section would have fit in the larger painting or what the quality of their work needed to look like) more-so than seeing example sections painted by teachers.

In terms of my students learning about van Gogh, I do not feel that they retained much information from my presentation. I am pleased I was able to present to them a brief summary of van Gogh’s life and works, but I know that in a few weeks many students would not be able to reiterate that information back to me. I have to think that as my ultimate goal for this unit was for my students to practice using complementary colors while getting exposure to famous professional artwork, it is not a failure on my or their part if they cannot tell me something they learned about van Gogh. All I see is success in my students for having beautifully recreated some of his iconic yet challenging paintings.