Pop-Up Kirigami Landscapes

The 3rd grade artists have been busy learning about landscapes in visual art.

This unit began be introducing students to key vocabulary words such as: horizon line, foreground, middle ground, and background.  We analyzed several examples of paintings and photographs in order to determine where in the imagery these terms were illustrated.

To develop their understanding of these terms, they were asked to generate a example of a landscape using blocks, clay, and other art supplies on their tables.

This was a palace landscape...pretty clever, I thought!

The next class, I shared a kirigami (art of paper cutting) technique to create a pop-up landscape. I challenged them to create a pop-up prototype landscape showing background, foreground, and a middle ground pop-up item.

This exercise was to prepare them for their final larger mixed-media pop-up landscapes. I could assess their understanding of the terms and techniques with these prototypes.

The following class the students were given their choice of colored card stock paper (a stiffer/stronger paper) for their background/foreground. I reviewed upon and encouraged them to use collage and mixed media techniques to add visual elements to communicate their landscape ideas.

Finally, they self-assessed their pop-up landscapes by determining if their work showed a landscape with a horizon line (the central fold), foreground, middle ground pop outs, and backgrounds. They also said that there should be good craftsmanship and details.

I wanted the artists to have some subject matter choices, so I was flexible with their content so long as they showed a landscape (view of outdoors). They had a lot of fun creating these, some students went home and created more!

Thanks for stopping by!