Lesson Plan W MY vAcAtion A d Poppies

Elementary
(Grades K–5)

Lesson Plan

While on My Vacation
Andrew Dasburg’s
Poppies

Poppies, Andrew Dasburg, 1931

Overview
Students will use Andrew Dasburg’s Poppies to inspire their imaginations as they create a
postcard to send home or to a friend, describing where they are staying on “vacation.” Students
will use both drawing and writing to engage creative visual and verbal skills in making the
postcard.

Age Group
Elementary (grades K–5)

CMCS
Visual Arts
Standard 1: Students recognize and use the visual arts as a form of communication.
Standard 2: Students know and apply elements of art, principles of design, and sensory and

expressive features of visual arts.
Standard 3: Students know and apply visual arts materials, tools, techniques, and processes.
Standard 4: Students relate the visual arts to various historical and cultural traditions.
Standard 5: Students analyze and evaluate the characteristics, merits, and meaning of works

of art.

Reading and Writing
Standard 2: Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Standard 3: Students write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure,

punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
Standard 4: Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and

viewing.

Length of Lesson
One 50-minute lesson

Rationale
By drawing the room depicted in Poppies, this lesson activates right-brain operations that then
work in concert with left-brain language functions as students write their postcard message.
Cross-brain activities like these help students enrich their overall brain functioning. Additionally,
the activities require close examination of, and appreciation for, the painting in order for students
to create something new that is inspired by what they see.

Wish You Were Here
Andrew Dasburg’s Poppies

Denver Art Museum

Objectives
Students will be able to:

• feel comfortable taking creative risks to draw their version of the room depicted in
Andrew Dasburg’s Poppies;

• include the main elements depicted in the painting in their drawings;
• use their imaginations to describe what it would be like to stay in the room; and
• explain why they made the choices they did for their finished piece.

Materials
• Drawing paper or journals
• Three 4 x 6 inch note cards for each student (so they can make mistakes)
• Assorted colored pencils
• One pencil with eraser for each student

Included:
• About the Art sheet on Poppies
• One color copy of the painting for every four students, or the ability to project the image
onto a wall or screen

Lesson
1. Warm-up: Have students pick a section of the classroom and quickly sketch out what
they see. Encourage them to pay attention to angles, the relationship of different
objects to each other, and lighting. Let them know that you are more interested in
what they see and include and less interested in how they draw. Have them share
their sketches with a partner.
2. Show students the painting Poppies and lead a discussion about the angles, lighting,
colors, and overall feel of the painting.
3. Have students imagine they are on vacation and this is a painting of their hotel room.
Ask the students to sketch the room on one side of a 4 x 6 inch note card, paying
attention to the elements you discussed earlier. On the other side of the card, have
students write about the room and how it feels to them. They should also write about
where they imagine this room being located in the world. How can they tell?
4. Have the students share their postcards in small groups and talk about why they
picked the location they did, as well as why they chose the feelings they did.

Wish You Were Here
Andrew Dasburg’s Poppies

Denver Art Museum

About the Art

Andrew Dasburg’s
Poppies

Poppies, Andrew Dasburg, 1931

Who Made It?

At age five, Andrew Dasburg traveled with his widowed mother from his birthplace of Paris to
New York. A fall into an excavation site at age seven sent Dasburg to a home for children with
disabilities, where his artistic talent was first encouraged. He enrolled in art school at the Art
Students League at age 16, and at 19 he was awarded a scholarship to the League’s summer
program in Woodstock, New York. In 1909 Dasburg traveled to Paris, where he was profoundly
moved by seeing Paul Cézanne’s paintings for the first time. (Cézanne is a renowned French
painter who has been called a forerunner of modern painting.) An art collector loaned Dasburg
a small Cezanne still-life of apples so he could copy the painting over and over again to better
understand and emulate Cézanne’s style. Back in New York, Dasburg continued to immerse
himself in the art world, experimenting with color theory and abstraction (not depicting an
object exactly how it looks but simplifying, distorting, or rearranging it to reflect an emotion or
sensation).

Dasburg moved to Taos, New Mexico, around 1930, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Addison’s disease—and the fatigue and depression that came with it—kept him from working
for nearly a decade, but he started painting again at age 60. After his diagnosis, Dasburg
moved away from oil paint and watercolors and began using ink, pencil, and pastels. He also
made lithographs, or stone prints. He died at age 93, with the distinction of being the oldest
surviving participant from the 1913 Armory Show, the first International Exhibition of Modern Art
in America.

What Inspired It?

Increasingly influenced by the landscape of New Mexico, Dasburg resolved to give up pure
abstraction, realizing he gained more satisfaction in reacting to shapes and forms he observed
in nature rather than working from pure invention. He simplified and transformed the objects he
observed, using angular lines and geometric shapes to represent them without destroying their
identity as objects.

Dasburg’s real interest was not in studying flowers or their symbolism, but in simply creating a
good picture. The poppies were only a starting point for a study in color, shape, balance, and
rhythm. Dasburg made sure each individual shape that he used contributed to the picture as
a whole. Rhythm was particularly important to him; he said that “the force of gravity” and the
“upward impulse in living things” were fundamental factors in considering rhythm. Looking at the
poppies, it’s easy to see both the force of gravity as the blossoms droop and petals fall, and the
“impulse in living things” in their natural upward growth.

Andrew Dasburg’s Poppies
Denver Art Museum

Things to Look For
Straight and Curved Lines
The square shape of the doorframe and table and the short, straight
brushstrokes create a sense of angularity that contrasts with the arcs of the
vase, the rounded poppy petals, and the curved stems.

Warm and Cool Colors
Dasburg was interested in color theory and made use of the principle
that warm colors seem to come forward in space and cool colors recede.
The bright, warm color of the poppies forces the flowers to the front of the
picture. In contrast, the walls, which are made up of purples and blues,
seem to move back into space.
Vibrating Color
In most of the painting, Dasburg applied color in patches and separate
brushstrokes, interspersing warm and cool colors for a lively, almost
vibrating effect. The bold red and green colors in the center intensify each
other. The bright background creates a halo around the vase and flowers,
emphasizing the vibrancy of the vase and poppies.

Arc of Blossoms
Dasburg placed the flowers along a diagonal line, beginning at the upper
left and cascading down to the lower right. Follow the arc from the long-
stemmed flower that curves upward, to one that sits lower in the vase but
still faces upward, to its neighbor that faces downward, and finally to the
poppy whose stem curves completely down toward the table.

Andrew Dasburg’s Poppies
Denver Art Museum

Poppies, Andrew Dasburg, 1931

Funds, by exchange, from Mr. and Mrs. Gibson Gardner and Mr. and Mrs. Bayard J. Young in memory of Governor
Oliver H. Shoup, and Mr. and Mrs. Merrill E. Shoup, Helen H. Erickson, YWCA,

Elizabeth Scanlan bequests, Art America Fund, A. Wassenich Collection, and general acquisition funds, 1989.149
Photograph © Denver Art Museum 2009. All Rights Reserved.