Cezanne Inspired Still-Life with Fruit

I've been teaching this lesson for the last couple of years and I keep changing it. This year I really focused on getting the kids to 'draw' the actual still-life, instead of letting them invent a still-life by tracing circles. I think drilling this early is going to make a big difference...

Day One:
We define "still-life" in our idea books. They draw a still-life on their own (pre-assessment) then I draw it with them. We compare our drawings and see who was using their "artist eyes" to really observe the objects.

Then I let them trace a plate to get a big circle...and then they draw the fruit and paint with warm colors.

Day Two:
We write about contrasting colors in our idea books then draw two columns...one side warm colors and the other cool colors. Then we draw a pattern for our "table" on our painting from day one. They get to paint with cool colors to show contrast. I like to talk about how "water is your friend" when you are painting....as a result, they create some value without really knowing it. So they're paintings have a little more depth. I have also started letting them use the smaller, nicer brushes...so those little brushstrokes look really nice.

Here is a really nice painting...not a still life at all...but hey, if the art teacher can't appreciate a good painting, then why are we here? 

Day Three: Adding shadows and highlights. 

I got the oil pastels out to bring some "definition" to these paintings...cause I guess I can't live without line. We added some extra pizazz/patterns/designs. Then I demonstrated how to do an "easy shadow" and a quick highlight...we outlined in black to bring some more boldness to our paintings. 

Overall...some of my favorite still-lifes yet.

Non-objective Paintings with 3rd

I love doing this painting project with 3rd grade at the end of the year. We mix a tint or shade on day one for the background using a cool color base. The next class we paint the concentric shapes with warm colors to create contrast. They always look so festive in the hallways.

If you only had one day for this project, drawing the concentric cirlces/shapes with a black oil pastel on that background looks really cool. I almost wanted them to leave them black and white!

We had some nice conversations about Kandinsky’s paintings. We discussed creating order out of chaos and how it can be hard to not “see things” in abstract/non-objective paintings. I was trying to get them to appreciate simply the elements of art…so we focused on line, shape, color and value for this project.

Henna Hands - 2nd Grade

 

Henna Hands with Warm and Cool Colors

 

First we discuss Henna Tattoos and the origin of "Mehndi". Next we trace our hands and outline in black permanent marker or black crayon.

 

(Here's an idea book page where we wrote about Henna Tattoos and created a sketch.)

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Day Two: Painting with Warm or Cool Colors

 

We wrote in our Idea Books and discussed warm and cool colors schemes.

I have trays of warm and cool watercolors separated and that comes in handy so many times throughout the year. It really helps with minimizing confusion.

 

Once the kids finished painting, (which doesn't take very long) I let them draw on our big Warm and Cool color posters just to reinforce what we learned.

 

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Day 3: Cutting out Henna Hands and creating an interesting background.

 

They chose an opposite color background...warm hand, cool background.

Then we painted designs with black paint.