The Art of Illustration
High School Lesson Plan

Pre-Visit Activity

Direction-Finding Activities

Teachers, we recommend that you choose a book from your school or local library containing reproductions of Rockwell's illustrations to share with your students as part of the pre-visit activities. Teachers read "A Visit in Autumn" (excerpt from: Norman Rockwell Vermont, The Arlington Years, 1939-53.) Have students form a visual image from the selection and draw a picture based on this visual image. The enclosed resource list contains several suggestions.

A Visit in Autumn

Late one afternoon in the fall of 1938, Norman and Mary Rockwell sat together on a bench in Arlington, Vermont, watching the people pass by on Main Street.

Norman puffed a briar pipe as his artist's eye saw the autumn colors of the wooded hillsides and how the Gothic spires of St. James Episcopal Church were etched against the twilight sky. This was the first time the Rockwells had visited Arlington, a rural community in the Green Mountains of southwestern Vermont. They had driven up from their home in the suburbs of New York City to look for an old farmhouse as a summer getaway.

Before having supper in a nearby inn, the Rockwells decided to go for a stroll along Main Street. Arm-in-arm, Norman and Mary walked by the Italianate-style Canfield house, a handsome brick building far different from the simple white clapboard 1859 Town Hall next door. A little farther on, they passed St. Columban's Roman Catholic Church, built in 1876 and designed with a steep roof, board-and-batten siding and little ornamentation.

Nearby, Norman bought pipe tobacco at George Howard's General Store before they made their way leisurely back to the inn. He and Mary were tired, and the peacefulness of Arlington was welcome.

Lesson Plan

Discussion: What Is an Illustrator?

Detail the discussion by also defining an illustrator as someone who tells history through painting and not just limited words.

Why Is Illustration Used?

Explain how years ago there was no technology to reproduce photographs. People hired illustrators to provide pictures for their publications. In 1886, the new technology of photography was created, and this enabled publishers to reproduce original artwork.

With the new technology of photography, the years of 1880 to 1920 are known as the Golden Age of Illustration. During this time, publications such as magazines and newspapers were being produced in a less difficult way and of better quality.

Who Was Norman Rockwell?

Norman Rockwell was a famous illustrator who was born during the Golden Age of Illustration in New York. Rockwell did not see himself as an artist; he saw himself as a storyteller who used pictures rather than words.

What Is the History of Norman Rockwell, the Illustrator?

• Rockwell knew that he always wanted to be an artist; at the age of 16 he attended art school full time. Rockwell worked as an extra in the New York City Opera, drew sketches and painted cards for wealthy people, and also delivered mail for 25 cents a day to each resident on his route.
• Rockwell sold his first illustration at the age of 18.
• Rockwell mainly illustrated for children's books and magazines.
• Rockwell was the chief illustrator and art director for Boys' Life magazine.
• Currently, the National Scouting Museum has over 50 original paintings, choral drawings, and oil studies by Rockwell; you will have seen many of these today.
• The Red Cross hired him to paint some of his first color illustrations. These paintings were given as a gift to the Boy Scouts of America from the Red Cross.
• In 1925 Brown and Bigelow published Norman Rockwell Scouting-theme calendars, and continued to publish calendars for the next 51 years.
• Rockwell painted "A Good Turn" and donated the painting to the NSM as a thank-you gift to the BSA for helping him start off his career.
• In 1939 Rockwell received the highest award Scouting has: the Silver Buffalo.
• In 1977 Rockwell received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, the highest civilian award in the U.S.
• Rockwell died in 1978 at the age of 84.

Student Participation

• Divide the groups into pairs. One member of the pair will visualize a character and a story, and describe the situation to his/her partner. The partner will illustrate the idea.
• Switch roles.
• Share illustrations and see if the group can guess the stories.

Post-Visit Activity

Select a Rockwell illustration and have students describe what changes would be in the painting today with all of the current technology that exists. Have students choose a character and draw that character (does not have to be from a Rockwell painting.) Have the students think of an event that would change the facial expression or body position of the character. Draw the changed character. Have students describe the event that created the change.

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