“Visiting Ubbelohde”: Art Class with a Twist

Art teacher Ines Vielhaben took Class 5a and the students enrolled in the art course from the 11th grade on a “visit” to see Otto Ubbelohde at the Marburg Art Association. Of course, this didn’t happen on a single joint visit, since the objectives naturally differ depending on the students’ ages. While the fifth graders were first introduced to the rules of a museum and an art association and then focused on the works of the famous painter, the older students immediately began applying the knowledge they had learned in class.

 

Developing Drawing Skills

Landscape depictions, especially trees in drawings, were a central theme for Class 5a. The students were first asked to identify which drawings they found particularly appealing, and then to recreate them in a simplified style in their own sketchbooks. Since Ubbelohde drew his fairy-tale characters in landscapes from his local surroundings, the students were also encouraged to try their hand at depicting landscapes themselves. A supply cart was made available for this purpose. Class 5a benefited from this “somewhat different art class” in particular by sharpening their own vision and perception, analyzing landscape and image composition, and thus developing their own drawing skills.

 

A Picture Takes a Journey Through Time

The 11th-grade class also practiced their drawing skills. The focus here was initially on analyzing the techniques Ubbelohde used in a particular work to create the illusion of space, for example. Students then tackled assignments across a total of five difficulty levels. These ranged from imitating the depicted trees as simplified representations, to transferring a painted tree into a graphic, to painting with muted colors, or the task of taking a picture on a journey through time and modifying the chosen motif in their own design so that it is transported into the present day.
According to Ines Vielhaben, the participants of all age groups successfully mastered all the challenges of the excursion and found it to be an educational and refreshing change of pace.