Eighth Grade Students Build Their Own Canvas and Learn to Paint

In September, eighth graders assembled canvases before learning to paint their chosen landscapes in Middle School art teacher Elissa Donovan’s class. 

To make their canvases, students:

1. Assembled the wood stretcher strips to make the 12×16 frame.
2. Attached their canvas material, tightening from the middle and working their way outwards before stapling it to the frame.
3. Sealed the canvas with gesso, an acrylic primer that simultaneously seals the canvas and creates a slightly textured surface for paint to adhere to.

Once their canvas was complete, students began working on their landscapes using different landscape photos for reference. Donovan explained to her students how important the foreground, middle ground, and background are to the painting’s dimension. 

“How do you create the illusion of perspective?” Donovan said. “First, you start by painting the sky and the horizon line, the background. Then, slowly, you build your landscape forward all the way to the foreground, adding more details and colors as you go.”

Students learned that the farther something is in the background, the more it should lose its color and detail, and vice versa for adding things to the foreground.

In the end, Donovan’s students each have an original piece entirely constructed by themselves.