Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English-Language Arts, ESL
Time Required: 45–60 minutes
Author: Getty Museum Education Staff

Featured Getty Artwork: 
Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning by Claude Monet
	On the web: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=1088 
View of the Grand Canal and the Dogana by Bernrado Bellotto
 	On the web: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=990 
Irises by Vincent VanGogh	
		On the web: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=947

Lesson Overview: 
Students will practice their speaking skills while describing a landscape scene for a partner to draw. 

Learning Objectives: 
- Students use landscape vocabulary to describe images.
- Students translate their peers’ verbal descriptions of an image into visual form.

Materials:  
- One of the featured Getty artworks
- Looking at Landscapes Vocabulary. Download RTF: 	 http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/esl/downloads/landscape_vocab.rtf

Lesson Steps:
- Divide students into pairs. Explain to students that one person in the pair will draw, and the other will describe. Each pair must decide who will be the describer and who will be the person to draw. 

- Make sure everyone has a blank piece of paper and a pencil and or colored pencils.

- Next, pass out printouts of one of the images to each describer. Remind the describer when you pass out the postcards that he or she cannot let the person drawing see the image, nor can he or she let anyone else see the image since everyone is working form the same postcard. 

- Explain that the drawer will sketch the scene according to the description provided by the describer, who will use the new vocabulary words to explain what they see in the image. The drawer is not allowed to look at the image! The describer is not allowed to point to the drawer’s paper. If any instructions are provided they must be given verbally. 

- Give students enough time to complete their descriptions and drawings. When finished, they can compare their drawings to the image.

- Have students share their drawings and their impressions of the activity. Ask them if this exercise was difficult or easy. Why?

Enrichment Activities:
If you have time, you may display a second image and have pairs reverse their roles.