Drawing your City - the Art of Stephen Wiltshire

Drawing your City - the Art of Stephen Wiltshire PDF

Summary:
In this lesson, students will be exposed to the artwork of Stephen Wiltshire. Wiltshire is from Britain and known for his large-scale detailed drawings of cityscapes. After learning about Wiltshire, who is autistic, students will have the opportunity to draw their own cityscape, inspired by Wiltshire’s art. For an extra geographic element, they can write facts about their city and create a bulletin board display. They will also consider how Wiltshire is often most widely described as a savant/genius, and how these words can create challenging stereotypes, both for the autistic community and for artists. For both, these words set up unrealistic expectations about who autistic people are/can be, and what art is/can be/how much training and practice is required to be an artist.

Subject and topic: 

Art, Geography

Grade level: 

4th - 8th grade

Duration: 

1-2 hours (Depending on how long you give for artwork creation)