Picturing America for Public Libraries

Students learned about the Grant Wood painting, "The Ride of Paul Revere" after creating a copy as a group by copying squares of a cut up copy of the painting. The following is an explanation of how the students created this picture. THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF PAUL REVERE by Grant Wood - a copy of this painting was cut up into 1” numbered squares. Students were given random squares to copy on to 2” squares. None of the students knew what the painting looked like. When all 72 squares were copied we assembled the pieces to see if they matched well enough to recognize the painting. This is a lesson in trusting your eye and hand to draw an image. If you do this the result is often a very accurate rendering of the image you are looking at.

Submitted by Rebecca Boardman