Ted Harrison

Canadian Artist, Ted Harrison came to Canada in the 1970's.  Originally from England, he settled in the Yukon for decades before moving to  Victoria, BC.

This is a wonderful project to do in conjunction with  a study on Canadian provinces. I use the book O Canada. All the pictures are created by Ted Harrison. Each province and territory is featured. (Nunavut is not included since it was not a territory yet when the book was published)

I begin by looking at the art and asking the students to guess  which province is being portrayed by looking at the symbols represented. I have made it into a game. Each centre has 3 art pictures and 4 province and/or territory names. Students have 2 minutes to figure out which province or territory is represented and why.

I then ask them what each of the pictures have in common. 
Curvy lines, vivid  "magic"colours, fore, middle and background, simple subjects

For the art project, I ask the students to choose a simple subject ( buildings, flowers, trees, sail boats, animals) and place in the centre ( middle ground) of their picture. Then to add a foreground and then a background. Remind students that things in the foreground are bigger than the middle ground object. I also encourage the use of  curvy lines. I also let them know that the horizon line is about a third of the page from the bottom.

Examples:
Foreground could be sidewalks, bushes, grasses, water, animals
Middle Ground: trees buildings, mountains, seashore, animals
Background: sky, mountains, buildings

The students can use pastels or paints to finish their pictures.