Personal Picture Narratives

Introduce your students to African American artist Jacob Lawrence. He began painting during the era of the Harlem Renaissance. He is known for his dramatic use of primary and bold color and strong geometric figures. Lawrence had a strong interest in creating visual narratives about historically important African Americans. One series of narratives about Harriet Tubman was published as a children’s picture book.

In this lesson students will look closely at the paintings in his Harriet Tubman series and some of his other works depicting historical figures. They will learn to identify Lawrence’s unique style from work by other artists based on the elements of color and shape. After devising a plan, students will create a painting using the same art elements of color and shape to create a picture showing an imagined scene from the life of Tubman.