New Project for Teaching Landscapes: 1st Grade

I had come across the artist Tom Schulten. 

 I loved the color & pattern of his abstract landscapes. 

(Check out his site here ->  http://www.tonschulten.nl/galerie/ )

I wanted to jazz up my tired landscape lesson with 1st grade....so I thought I'd use Tom Schulten's as inspiration.  We started by selecting five colors of markers to draw horizontal lines across our page. I then had the student draw in a simple line drawing for foreground, middle ground, and backgroud using black crayon. Students then used a thick paint brush with water to go over the whole page(painting in a horizontal direction).  After the work was dry, we used construction paper crayons to highlight certain parts to define the areas.  I think they turned out pretty cool!  Even if the students didn't realize it was something new/different...I sure enjoyed it!