Telling A Story With Art
Submitted by: Barbara Rhodes, retired art teacher
Unit: Drawing/Design/Painting
Title of Story: Phoebe
Total Sessions: 3
Level: Advanced Middle School / Freshmen
Total Points: (100 points per class period) = 300
Media:
Your choice of colored media (Watercolor Paint
Vocabulary:
Foreground, Middle ground, Back ground.
Purpose:
To see what each student's level of development is at this time. This project will help indicate imagination level as well as ability to handle chosen media and level of drawing ability.
General:
You are to tell a story with the use of visual information. Show the PowerPoint 
before you begin. The elements that you must include in this drawing/painting to help tell your story are:
1. A character - woman or man or alien or child or cartoon character (can not be known cartoon character)
2. A pet
3. A background
4. A foreground
5. An object in the character's hand
6. Enhance the head area with something that helps tell your story (hat, jewelry, makeup, etc.)
7. Help tell your story about your character by your choice of footwear.
8. Use a border design, like a picture frame, to enforce the tale you are telling
9. Use something in the composition to tell what your character's occupation is.
10. Use something in the composition to tell the viewer what your character's personality is.
Click on the images for full size
Alternative approach:
Use the same ten elements in your art story but instead of making up your own character use Phoebe and illustrate the following story as well as add more than just what the words tell us.
"Looking at Phoebe is always a pleasure. Unpredictable, but always a pleasure. She was at that time well into her sixties, but it is, has always been, impossible to equate Phoebe to the passing years."
"I saw the thick stockings, the stout boots, the worn and faded blue-jean skirt. Over these she wore a man's shirt and cardigan (probably inherited from Chip); There were gold chains about her neck, and a tartan scarf, and on her head, inevitably, a hat."
"She always wore hats, broad-brimmed, deep crowned, rather dashing. She had taken to wearing them to protect her eyes while painting out of doors, from the cold, white glare of the Cornish light, and they had become so much part of her that she very often forgot to take them off. This hat was rich brown, decorated with gray gull feathers stuck into the ribbon band. Beneath its kindly shade, Phoebe's face, the skin netted with lines, twinkled and smiled at me. The smile revealed teeth that were pearly white, so white that they were never mistaken for what they were, false teeth, too perfect to be real. Her eyes were the deepest speedwell blue, their brightness challenged only by the turquoise-and-silver earrings that dangled on either side of her face."
Daily Goals:
1st Day Do a completed sketch by the end of the period
2nd Day Add color and ink lines by the end of the period
3rd Day Finalize by the end of class – double check the list of elements and make sure you have them all covered.
