Charlie Russell Painting Lesson

This is another Charlie Russell project I just finished with my 3-6 grade class. These kids really enjoyed learning more about this artist. I showed a couple of youtube videos on him and several of his prints. Like I said in my earlier post on Russell, the kids in this small Montana school can really appreciate his art and love looking at the history of their state that he so masterfully portrayed in his pictures.

For this lesson we took one of his paintings called "Just a Little Sunshine" (see below), and I had the students copy the cowboy and horse, while creating their own background. We worked on using a soft touch with the watercolors to try and give the same feel that Charlie Russell had in his work.

I chose this particular painting because I thought it would be an easier picture to copy than most of his paintings which have alot of action in them. I think the kids had alot of success with this project, and they were very proud of their work.