Create Your Own Jacob Lawrence Inspired Series

On Friday you learned that Jacob Lawrence told stories by creating series of paintings. He illustrated one scene of the story at a time until it was complete. Lawrence was careful to use the same colors in each painting of a series. He did this by first planning each painting. Then he filled the colors in one at a time. For instance, he would paint all the red parts of the paintings, then all the yellow, then all the blue. Today, draw your own story.

Supplies Needed:

At least 5 sheets of paper
Pencil
Crayons

Decide the story you want to tell. It can be true, from you own life or from someone else’s, or you can make up a story.

Sketch each scene onto its own sheet of paper. Create at least 5 scenes. Jacob Lawrence’s series were much longer. His migration series was 60 scenes long!

Now color them in. You can color each picture separately or add one color at a time like Lawrence did.

Remember to number your scenes (on the back of each paper) so you can easily keep them in order.

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