This is how I teach an Alma Thomas art lesson and why my students love it.
What the Students Learn
My students love how colorful the paintings of Alma Thomas are and the happiness she conveys with her bright color palette. In this lesson, students analyze and critique her work and also learn about her style and mimic the heavy brushstrokes and dashes of vivid colors she uses in her paintings. They also learn how to use color and direction to create variety in their artwork. Lastly, this painting lesson allows students to experiment with mixing paint to make tints and create analogous colors for each section of their landscape. I also use this lesson to teach about landscapes and the related vocabulary. My students learn to identify the foreground, middle ground and background of a landscape and explain how these areas can be used to create space within their painting. I also challenge my students to explain atmospheric perspective and why colors appear lighter as they are further away.
Who Enjoys This Lesson?
This lesson can be taught to upper elementary students through high school. I have taught a simplified abstract version of this lesson to fifth and sixth grade students, eliminating objects, such as trees, from the landscape and focusing on the different section of the landscape and how the terrain can change using a variety in lines and colors. Older students are able to add more detail to the landscapes due to better brush control and smaller dashes of color to achieve more realistic landscapes. All ages seem to enjoy the lesson due to the abstract nature of the outcome. Some of the most beautiful paintings created are the most simplistic ones.
Why They Love It
Most of the time my students enjoy painting lessons, especially painting lessons that allow them to be successful. This is a great mixed media lesson as it mixes both watercolor and acrylic paint. The outcome of this lesson is bright, colorful, and engaging for students and the success rate is high which always makes a lesson a hit. Many of my students comment on how they really enjoy the artwork of Alma Thomas and found this a relaxing style of painting.
How I Teach the Lesson
Students begin by making several thumbnail sketches of their landscapes. Then they lightly draw a simple landscape on their watercolor paper, including a foreground, middle ground and background. Next, students use a watercolor wash (light colors) to block in each area with color. This is called the underpainting. Most of this will be covered with the over painting. This is a quick step, meant to eliminate the white paper. After the watercolor is dry students mix white with each color to create a variety of tints. Starting at the top of the paper, students paint rows of tints, gradually getting darker for the sky or ground. Students create analogous colors by mixing two neighbor colors together, such as orange and yellow.
The paint is applied in short brushstrokes, or they stamp the brush to create dashes like Alma Thomas. I encourage my students to use variety in the direction of their brushstrokes. For example, they sky may have horizontal brushstrokes, but the sun will have curved arched lines to create the roundness of the sun. I always remind my students to be mindful of craftsmanship, such as allowing areas to dry if painting on or near another color to avoid unwanted mixing. However, due to the nature of the underpainting and over painting technique students have to be open to “happy accidents” and make unnecessary brushstrokes seem intentional. Again, this is another reason I believe students enjoy creating abstract paintings.
Click here for more information about my complete Alma Thomas Painting Lesson.
About Alma Woodsey Thomas
Alma Thomas was the first student to graduate with a fine arts degree from Howard University. After graduating college, she taught art to junior high school students for over three decades. Due to her long career teaching art, she had a late start in painting as her second profession. One of her biggest accomplishments as a painter, was her solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, partly because she was the first African American woman to achieve this.
Enjoy, Trista
Related: My Black History Month Art Lesson Ideas post includes an idea for an Alma Thomas collage project.
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