Created by Katie Coblentz

School/Course
East Lake Academy
Chattanooga, TN
Visual Art / Title and Timeframe
Bamboo Painting
(2) 75 minute classes
Grade 7
Standards / 1.1  Demonstrate an understanding of the application of current media, techniques, technologies, and processes.
1.2  Demonstrate an understanding of the safe and responsible use of art media and tools.
3.1 Recognize and use subject matter, themes, and symbols in works of art.
6.1 Demonstrate an understanding of similarities between visual arts and other academic disciplines.
6.2 Discover how unique qualities of visual art compliment student’s total learning.
Objectives / Students will learn to use watercolor and a brush properly to create marks.
Students will recognize the important cultural contributions of the Chinese culture in art.
Essential/Driving Question / How can you create an Asian landscape painting using bamboo as the subject?
Procedures / When students walk into the classroom and immediately sit they will copy down the definitions to the four vocabulary words. A picture of Sixth Chan Patriarch Chopping Bamboo by Liang Kai will be displayed. This is the warm up task of describing everything the student sees in the picture. This is the first step in critiquing a piece of artwork. The teacher will explain the vocabulary and as a class, we will share out responses to the picture as the teacher makes a public record of the responses. The picture also introduces the theme for the class. The task should take approximately ten minutes.
The handout of The Art of China will be passed out to the students along with the Etch-A-Sketch worksheet. Students will use private reasoning time to read the passage and write down 3 main ideas onto the worksheet. Then the students will draw what they think the main ideas look like on the worksheet. This will take approximately twenty minutes.
The students will watch a tutorial on their own tech device about painting bamboo and follow along with it. The students have the ability to pause and rewind the tutorial as many times as needed. The students will have about thirty minutes to practice this task.
To conclude this class period, students will spread out their practice and then walk around once looking at each other’s work. We will share out which ones were successful and which ones were not as successful and why. This task will take about ten minutes.
The last five minutes of class will be for cleaning up. Brushes will go into a bucket of water and paint collected. All wet work will be put onto a drying rack with the student’s name on the work.
The second class period will be for working on the final artwork. A copy of the rubric will either be displayed or handed out to the students. The artwork must follow the instructions on the rubric which the teacher will take the first ten minutes of class to go over and address any questions. Sixty minutes will be given for students to work independently on their projects. The last five minutes will be left for cleaning up.
Evaluation / A rubric will be used to gauge proficiency and advanced work. To be proficient the student needs to show 1 practice sketch, a chop, 2 stalks of bamboo and 1 pictograph with the meaning. Proficient work will earn a grade of 90%. Advanced work will include everything under proficient plus multiple practice sketches and multiple pictographs with meanings that symbolize more than one meaning within the work. Advanced work will earn a grade of 100%.
Materials / 9x24 white multimedia paper, pencils, erasers, single color watercolor, round brushes, water cups, paper towels, tech device or mobile computer lab.
Student Handouts/Web
links / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQKVlYhPnXA
Resources / Kai, Liang. “Sixth Chan Patriarch Chopping Bamboo.”
Retrieved from: https://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/ancient-art-test-4/deck/6653144 on April 2’2017.
Langsner, Lori. “Art of the Orient: Chinese Scroll Painting.”
Retrieved from: www.teachersnetwork.org on April 2, 2017.
Perini, Matthew J., Silver, Harvey F., and Strong, Richard W.
tools for Promoting Active, In-Depth Learning. New Jersey:
Thoughtful education Press, LLC, 2001.
Yanghaiying. “Bamboo for Absolute Beginner 2”. Retrieved
from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQKVlYhPnXA on
April 2, 2017.
Vocabulary / Scrolls
Meditation
Landscape
Bamboo

The Art of China

The Chinese have a long history of being highly creative. Two thousand years before the invention of the seismograph, they were recording earthquakes. Long before the first Texas oil wells were drilled, they were drilling holes 2000 feet deep. The compass and the kite are two other early Chinese inventions. The fact that the Chinese have a gift for creating can be found in their art. There are many contributions to today’s society that are attributed to the Chinese culture. An important part of the Chinese religion, Buddhism, focuses on one’s thoughts on a single object or idea. The Chinese were the first people to think of “picture painting” as honorable work. Many artists were scholars and wrote with brushes that made thick and thin lines. They used this brush technique to paint pictures, fans, pages of books and scrolls. Chinese artists began work only after long meditation on an object. This helped the artist capture the mood he wanted to show. Scrolls were meant to be unrolled a little at a time, and read like a book.

Sixth Chan Patriarch Chopping Bamboo by Liang Kai