Mixed Media: Landscape Relief
LESSON FOCUS: The focus of this lesson is to create a landscape relief using
cardboard and tissue paper for texture.
VOCABULARY:
Atmospheric Perspective: The technique of creating the illusion of depth by using
certain rules of perspective. (see below)
Background: The part of a scene that is farthest from the viewer.
Foreground: The part of a scene that is closest to the viewer.
Landscape: A picture that shows a natural scene or land.
Middleground: The part of a scene that is between the background and foreground.
Relief Sculture: A three-dimensional sculpture that barely projects from the surface,
meant to be hung on a wall.
Texture: The visual tactile surface characteristics and appearance of something.
RULES OF ATMOSPHERIC PERSPECTIVE:
 Elements get lighter and less descriptive the farther away they get
 Elements have less contrast the farther away they are- more muted.
 Elements that are farther away are higher up on the page.
 Elements that are farther away are smaller.
 Elements that are closer to you are more detailed, brighter, closer to the
bottom, larger, and in front of elements in the back.
PROCEDURE:
 Choose a landscape that you find interesting.
 Draw it out onto oak tag that is the same size as the final project. You must
have at least four layers to your project. The background rectangle does not
count toward the four layers.
 Cut the pieces out of oak tag using scissors and/or an x-acto knife if there is a
lot of detail.
 Layered your pieces, make sure you are happy with the composition. If not,
draw more pieces, if you are, trace them onto chipboard.
 Once pieces are drawn, cut pieces out with an x-acto knife. Put your name on
the back and keep them together.
 After they are cut, apply tissue paper to the chipboard with a paint brush and
watered down elmer’s glue. Only do the front, and leave an edge of tissue
paper around the chipboard. Once they dry over night, flip the pieces over,
wrap the tissue paper around the back, and secure with glue mixture.
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Once dry, bend the chipboard so it is flat and use tacky glue to glue your
landscape together.
Using watered down acrylic paint, paint your landscape using realistic colors
and paying attention to atmospheric perspective.
Once painting is complete, use oil pastel to highlight the ridges of the tissue
paper to enhance your project. Do not color everywhere, this defeats the
purpose of painting.
Step I: Cut out pieces:
Step 2: Layered pieces:
Step 3: Don’t cover the base layer with tissue paper, just the area you will see:
MATERIALS:
14”x17” oak tag
pencils
erasers
scissors
x-acto knife
14”x17” chip board
elmer’s glue
paint brush
tissue paper
tacky glue
acrylic paint
oil pastel